Introduction by Jenna Mead.
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'Caroline Leakey, writing as Oliné Keese, published her first and only novel, The Broad Arrow, in 1859. It tells the story of Maida Gwynnham, a young middleclass woman lured into committing a forgery by her deceitful lover, Captain Norwell, and then wrongly convicted of infanticide. The novel’s title describes the arrow that was stamped onto government property, including the clothes worn by convicts — a symbol of shame and incarceration. With its ‘fallen woman’ protagonist, its gothic undertones and its exploration of the social and moral implications of the penal system, this little-known novel gives an insight into a significant chapter of Australian history from a uniquely female perspective.' (Publication summary)
Affiliation Notes
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19th-Century Australian Travel Writing
English writer and poet Caroline Woolmer Leakey (1827-1881) moved to Van Diemen’s Land at the age of twenty. She relocated with the intention of assisting a married sister there who was reluctant to entrust her children to convict nurses. Although Leakey spent most of her time living in Hobart, she stayed one year at Port Arthur with friends. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography notes that one year after arriving in Tasmania a fever and a hip complaint rendered her an invalid for the next five years and she turned to the writing of poetry for solace. Bishop Francis Nixon and his wife encouraged her to publish her poems, and her doctor J.W. Agnew sent copies of her work to the Mercury (unknown to Leakey). She published her travel narrative The Broad Arrow in 1859 under the pseudonym Oliné Keese. Written in the style of a moralistic novel, the work detailed Maida Gwynnham's life in England and Van Diemen's Land, and described Hobart Town, Port Arthur and society in the colony. The Broad Arrow was reprinted numerous times, signifying its popularity.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Also sound recording, e-book.
Works about this Work
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Violence in Colonial Women's Novels
2018
single work
essay
— Appears in: Southerly , December vol. 78 no. 3 2018; (p. 35-53)'Rachael Weaver has alerted us to the racial violence of colonial short stories, and notes that "[m]any novels also show graphic instances of frontier violence as part of larger and more wide ranging narratives" (fn 1, 33). One sub-genre of the novel form that does this is the carceral novel, such as Caroline Leakey's 'The Broad Arrow' (1859) and Marcus Clarke's 'For the Term of His Natural Life' (1874), which depict the explicit violence of the penal system through convict protagonists. This essay shows that violence abounds in colonial fiction not only in genres that make it explicit, but also where it is embedded - in novels usually categorised in the realist-romance genres (Giles; Dalziell; Thomson). often analysed in terms of gendered inequity (Harris), class relations (Thomson), and colonial representations of "national" identity (Allen; Spender; Gelder and WEAVER), novels by a number of major female novelists from the mid-nineteenth century to the First World War are revisited here through the lens of their treatment and performance of violence.' (Publication abstract)
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Rediscovering Tasmanian Short Stories
2012
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Island , Spring no. 130 2012; (p. 34-39) 'In September, Text Publishing brought out Deep South: Stories from Tasmania, a collection of twenty-four Tasmanian stories that I co-edited with Danielle Wood. Our book is a calculated attempt to influence what people read: to persuade both Tasmanians and visitors alike to read some of the stories that have come out of the island over the last two centuries. It is, to draw on Michael Heyward's critique of the neglect of Australian literature more generally, an effort to curate Tasmania's literary history - or at least a part of it. And that's a start.' (Author's introduction)
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Aboriginal Gothic
2010
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Darkness Subverted : Aboriginal Gothic in Black Australian Literature and Film 2010; (p. 11-29) In this essay, Althans ‘treats the Gothic as being a mode which continues to endow genres with a certain set of menacing stock elements and unstable characteristics of which the interrogation of boundaries, binaries, and identity are particularly useful in an Aboriginal Australian context’. (p.11-12) -
Convict Servants and Middle-Class Mistresses
2005
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Literature Interpretation Theory , vol. 16 no. 2 2005; (p. 163-187) -
From the Past : The Australian Twang
1998
single work
column
— Appears in: Ozwords , June vol. 4 no. 1 1998; (p. 6)
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New Publications : 'Broad Arrow'
1887
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sydney Mail , 26 February vol. 43 no. 1390 1887; (p. 43)
— Review of The Broad Arrow : Being Passages from the History of Maida Gwynnham, a Lifer 1859 single work novel -
Dusting Off the Crimes of Justice
1988
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 27 August 1988; (p. 78)
— Review of The Broad Arrow : Being Passages from the History of Maida Gwynnham, a Lifer 1859 single work novel -
Rescue Mission for Lost Literary Gem
1988
single work
review
— Appears in: The Mercury , 30 July 1988; (p. 23)
— Review of The Broad Arrow : Being Passages from the History of Maida Gwynnham, a Lifer 1859 single work novel -
Convict Servants and Middle-Class Mistresses
2005
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Literature Interpretation Theory , vol. 16 no. 2 2005; (p. 163-187) -
Women, Law and Literature : Representations of Women and the Law in American and Australian Fiction
1994
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Happy Couple : Law and Literature 1994; (p. 99-113) -
Aboriginal Gothic
2010
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Darkness Subverted : Aboriginal Gothic in Black Australian Literature and Film 2010; (p. 11-29) In this essay, Althans ‘treats the Gothic as being a mode which continues to endow genres with a certain set of menacing stock elements and unstable characteristics of which the interrogation of boundaries, binaries, and identity are particularly useful in an Aboriginal Australian context’. (p.11-12) -
Rediscovering Tasmanian Short Stories
2012
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Island , Spring no. 130 2012; (p. 34-39) 'In September, Text Publishing brought out Deep South: Stories from Tasmania, a collection of twenty-four Tasmanian stories that I co-edited with Danielle Wood. Our book is a calculated attempt to influence what people read: to persuade both Tasmanians and visitors alike to read some of the stories that have come out of the island over the last two centuries. It is, to draw on Michael Heyward's critique of the neglect of Australian literature more generally, an effort to curate Tasmania's literary history - or at least a part of it. And that's a start.' (Author's introduction)
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Caroline Leakey (1827-1881)
Margaret Giordano
,
Don Norman
,
1984
single work
biography
— Appears in: Tasmanian Literary Landmarks 1984; (p. 45-50)
- Van Diemen's Land (1803-1856), Tasmania,
- Hobart, Southeast Tasmania, Tasmania,
- Port Arthur, Tasman Peninsula, Forestier Peninsula - Tasman Peninsula area, Southeast Tasmania, Tasmania,
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cEngland,ccUnited Kingdom (UK),cWestern Europe, Europe,
- 1840s
- 1850s