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Notes
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Gertrude, the Emigrant: A Tale of Colonial Life (1857) was the first Australian novel written by a native-born woman and the first to be illustrated by its author. Published a few years after Catherine Spence's Clara Morison (1854), Gertrude also follows that novel in its story of a young immigrant heroine making a life in a colony which is itself in the making. The novel draws on authorial and family memories to summon the harsh, more complex, convict worlds of Sutton Forest, the Shoalhaven and Sydney in the late 1830s and 1840s. Binding her novel together with a conventional romance - and a murder mystery - this journalist-writer cannot avoid a wandering mode of picaresque which allows her recording eye free play. The chief value of Gertrude, the Emigrant rests today in its fresh, detailed documentation of regional history and its fine, evocative descriptions of lands and forests now lost. Written from a perspective as interested in domestic life as bush adventures, this is a novel which refuses to understand Australian colonial as English life transported elsewhere.
Contents
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Gertrude, the Emigrant : A Tale of Colonial Life : Introduction,
single work
criticism
(p. xiii-lxii)
Note: Map
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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The Literary Text as Historical Artifact : The Colonial Couple in Australian Romantic Fiction by Women, 1838-1860
2018
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Lilith , no. 24 2018; (p. 38-51)'This article inverts the title of Hayden White's 1974 essay 'The Historical Text as Literary Artifact' by exploring literary texts as historical artifacts. It uses three novels published by Australian women writers in the mid-nineteenth century - Catherine Helen Spence's Clara Morison (1854), Caroline Louisa Atkinson's Gertrude the Emigrant (1857), and Mary Theresa Vidal's 'Bengala, or Some Time Ago' (1860) - 'as historical sources to explore the emotional culture of colonial Australia in regard to romantic love. Following Sarah Pinto, this article takes the romantic couple as the centre of its analysis, and asks four key questions of the novels in the corpus: What kind of people fall in love? Who do they fall in love with? What kind of love do they fall in? And how do their lives and their loves interact with the colonial Australian landscape? It finds that romantic love in these novels is dependent on romanticised similarity and shared sensibility rather than eroticised otherness. It argues that while this might not necessarily be uniquely nationally distinctive, the Australian chronotopic context means that this narrative would have strong and specific resonances with a female colonial audience.' (Publication abstract)
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A Desire for Decency
2008
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Australian Folklore , November no. 23 2008; (p. 84-93) -
The Home : Furnishing the House in Early Australia
2008
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Margin , April no. 74 2008; (p. 19-26) -
Out of England : Literary Subjectivity in the Australian Colonies, 1788-1867
2004
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Imagining Australia : Literature and Culture in the New New World 2004; (p. 3-21) Modern Australian Criticism and Theory 2010; (p. 61-72) '...During traces the formation and transformation of 'modern literary subjectivity' in the distinctive conditions of nineteenth century Australia.' Source: Modern Australian Criticism and Theory (2010) -
Tricky and Reluctant Editing
2000
single work
review
— Appears in: Coppertales : A Journal of Rural Arts , no. 6 2000; (p. 112-115)
— Review of Gertrude the Emigrant : A Tale of Colonial Life 1857 single work novel
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Sixth Anniversary Publications
1999
single work
column
— Appears in: Newsletter (Australian Scholarly Editions Centre) , March no. 4 1999; (p. 3-5)
— Review of The Academy Editions of Australian Literature 1992- series - publisher ; Gertrude the Emigrant : A Tale of Colonial Life 1857 single work novel ; Australian Autobiographical Narratives: An Annotated Bibliography : Volume 2: 1850-1900 1998 single work bibliography biography -
Tricky and Reluctant Editing
2000
single work
review
— Appears in: Coppertales : A Journal of Rural Arts , no. 6 2000; (p. 112-115)
— Review of Gertrude the Emigrant : A Tale of Colonial Life 1857 single work novel -
A Faithful Picture of Life in Leipzig
1998
single work
review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 8 August 1998; (p. 21)
— Review of Gertrude the Emigrant : A Tale of Colonial Life 1857 single work novel ; Maurice Guest 1908 single work novel -
A Colonial Novel
1998
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , November no. 206 1998; (p. 35-36)
— Review of Gertrude the Emigrant : A Tale of Colonial Life 1857 single work novel -
Louisa Atkinson : Writings on Aboriginal Land Ownership
1989
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Margin , no. 21 1989; (p. 15-20) -
Out of England : Literary Subjectivity in the Australian Colonies, 1788-1867
2004
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Imagining Australia : Literature and Culture in the New New World 2004; (p. 3-21) Modern Australian Criticism and Theory 2010; (p. 61-72) '...During traces the formation and transformation of 'modern literary subjectivity' in the distinctive conditions of nineteenth century Australia.' Source: Modern Australian Criticism and Theory (2010) -
The Home : Furnishing the House in Early Australia
2008
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Margin , April no. 74 2008; (p. 19-26) -
A Desire for Decency
2008
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Australian Folklore , November no. 23 2008; (p. 84-93) -
Untitled
1998
single work
correspondence
— Appears in: Margin , April no. 44 1998; (p. 18-20)
- New South Wales,
- 1800-1899