The extent and nature of MF
's education is unknown, but her writing is sprinkled with Latin and French, and critic Lucy Sussex
writes that she was adept at written English [and] sometimes used an...
Family and Intimate relationships
Mary Fortune
Indeed, her whole motivation at this time is murky: though she apparently had a work-related reason, she may have been escaping from her marriage. Lorna Sage
, following Lucy Sussex
, suggested that MF
was...
Literary responses
Mary Fortune
Lucy Sussex
describes Dora Carleton as a rather less polished but more intriguing work
Sussex, Lucy et al. “Introduction”. Mary Helena Fortune ("Waif Wander" / "W.W."), c. 1833-1910: A Bibliography, Department of English, University of Queensland, 1998, pp. 1-11.
7
than its predecessor, Bertha's Legacy.
Literary responses
Mary Fortune
To critic Andrew ManghamThe White Maniac examplifies a Victorian fascination with the potential for violence and irrationality in female adolescents, and detection as sustain[ing] a number of social hierarchies through the actual and figurative...
Literary responses
Mary Fortune
Lucy Sussex
describes The Detective's Album as a somewhat mixed bag.
Sussex, Lucy et al. “Introduction”. Mary Helena Fortune ("Waif Wander" / "W.W."), c. 1833-1910: A Bibliography, Department of English, University of Queensland, 1998, pp. 1-11.
10
Literary responses
Mary Fortune
Lucy Sussex
describes The Bushranger's Autobiography as an action melodrama,
Sussex, Lucy, and Mary Fortune. “A Woman of Mystery”. The Detectives’ Album, Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, Apr. 2003, pp. 3-18.
14
and compares it unfavourably with Marcus Clarke
's contemporaneous His Natural Life. While it contains some fine writing,
Sussex, Lucy, and Mary Fortune. “A Woman of Mystery”. The Detectives’ Album, Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, Apr. 2003, pp. 3-18.
14
she suggests it...
Reception
Mary Fortune
Recent editions and general knowledge of Fortune owe a great deal to the work of critic and novelist Lucy Sussex
. Sussex was responsible for editing and introducing the collection The Fortunes of Mary Fortune...
Textual Production
Mary Fortune
If MF
is indeed the author of either The Stolen Specimens or Traces of Crime, then she is, Lucy Sussex
argues, the earliest known female writer of detective fiction. Both stories pre-date the serialization...
Textual Production
Mary Fortune
In publishing her poem Cooée in the The Australian Journal, MF
first used her pseudonym Waif Wander.
Lucy Sussex
uses the title Cooée in her bibliography of Fortune; a 1995 Mulini Press
reprint...
Textual Production
Mary Fortune
The Australian Journal carried MF
's The White Maniac: A Doctor's Tale, a far more sensational and macabre short story than My Lady Jane.
MF
apparently began her literary career publishing poetry in local Australian newspapers. Her critic and biographer Lucy Sussex
characterizes some of this poetry as politically radical.
Sussex, Lucy et al. “Introduction”. Mary Helena Fortune ("Waif Wander" / "W.W."), c. 1833-1910: A Bibliography, Department of English, University of Queensland, 1998, pp. 1-11.
5
Textual Production
Mary Fortune
MF
never explicitly stated her reasons for choosing her pseudonym, although in her article How I Spent Christmas, 1869, she describes herself as both a waif
Fortune, Mary, and Judith Brett. The Fortunes of Mary Fortune. Editor Sussex, Lucy, Penguin, 1989.
167
and a lonely wanderer.
Fortune, Mary, and Judith Brett. The Fortunes of Mary Fortune. Editor Sussex, Lucy, Penguin, 1989.
172
This...
Textual Production
Mary Fortune
Although stories in Memoirs of an Australian Police Officer and Adventures of an Australian Mounted Trooper first appeared without attribution, a number of them were soon re-issued under his own name by James Skipp Borlase
Timeline
No timeline events available.
Texts
Sussex, Lucy. “’Shrouded in Mystery’: Waif Wander (Mary Fortune)”. A Bright and Fiery Troop: Australian Women Writers of the Nineteenth Century, edited by Debra Adelaide, Penguin, 1988, pp. 117-31.
Sussex, Lucy, and Mary Fortune. “A Woman of Mystery”. The Detectives’ Album, Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, pp. 3-18.
Sussex, Lucy et al. “Introduction”. Mary Helena Fortune ("Waif Wander" / "W.W."), c. 1833-1910: A Bibliography, Department of English, University of Queensland, 1998, pp. 1-11.
Sussex, Lucy, and Elizabeth Gibson. Mary Helena Fortune ("Waif Wander" / "W.W."), c. 1833-1910: A Bibliography. Department of English, University of Queensland, 1998.
Sussex, Lucy. “Mrs Henry Wood and her Memorials”. Women’s Writing, Vol.
15
, No. 2, pp. 157-68.
Brett, Judith, and Mary Fortune. “Preface”. The Fortunes of Mary Fortune, edited by Lucy Sussex and Lucy Sussex, Penguin, 1989, p. ix - xi.
Fortune, Mary, and Judith Brett. The Fortunes of Mary Fortune. Editor Sussex, Lucy, Penguin, 1989.
Sussex, Lucy, and Mary Fortune. “What the Mischief Does a Bonnet Want Here?: An Introduction to Mary Fortune (Waif Wander)”. The Fortunes of Mary Fortune, edited by Lucy Sussex, Penguin, 1989, p. xii - xxiii.
Sussex, Lucy, and John Burrows. “Whodunit?: Literary Forensics and the Crime Writing of James Skipp Borlase and Mary Fortune”. Bibliographic Society of Australia and New Zealand Bulletin, Vol.