Henry Handel Richardson

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In a publishing career that began in 1895 and first registered with the public in 1908, expatriate Australian HHR produced six novels (three of which make up an epic trilogy), a collection of short stories, and an enigmatic volume of memoirs. Her literary forebears were more continental European than either English or Australian, and her intellectualism and experimentalism produced a mixed reception, but her reputation as one of the important writers of the earlier twentieth century now seems secure.
Black and white photograph of Henry Handel Richardson. She is seated, wearing a large fur coat over a white blouse, and her hair is jaw-length, dark, and wavy.

Milestones

3 January 1870

Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson (later the writer HHR ) was born at 139 Victoria Parade, Fitzroy, in the boom town of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, amid the crashings of a terrific thunderstorm,
Ackland, Michael. Henry Handel Richardson: A Life. Cambridge University Press.
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her parents' elder daughter.
Ackland, Michael. Henry Handel Richardson: A Life. Cambridge University Press.
xv, 27

August 1908

HHR published her first novel, Maurice Guest, which she had begun to write about eleven years before this.
Ackland, Michael. Henry Handel Richardson: A Life. Cambridge University Press.
166, 136
Campbell, Gerald FitzGerald. “Maurice Guest”. Times Literary Supplement, No. 348, p. 294.
294

10 January 1929

Twenty-one years after publishing her first book, HHR completed her Australian trilogy with Ultima Thule, which far outsold her earlier books and brought her international reputation.
Ackland, Michael. Henry Handel Richardson: A Life. Cambridge University Press.
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Child, Harold H. “Ultima Thule”. Times Literary Supplement, No. 1407, p. 42.
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20 March 1946

HHR died of stomach cancer at her home, Green Ridges in Tilekiln Lane at Fairlight near Hastings in Sussex, her great courage in physical pain buttressed by her belief in spiritualism.
Ackland, Michael. Henry Handel Richardson: A Life. Cambridge University Press.
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By mid-July 1948

HHR 's autobiography, Myself When Young (titled from Edward FitzGerald 's Rubàiyàt of Omar Khayyàm), appeared posthumously in print, as completed after her death by Olga Roncoroni .
Bowen, Elizabeth. “The Evolution of a Novelist”. Times Literary Supplement, No. 2424, p. 395.
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Biography

She wrote: This Henry Handel is the man of straw I have set up for the critics to tilt at, while I sit safe & obscure behind.
Ackland, Michael. Henry Handel Richardson: A Life. Cambridge University Press.
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Birth and Family

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