An accomplished author, artist, botanist and naturalist despite her lack of formal education, Louisa Anne Meredith was the first woman to write a description of life in Tasmania. Her first book of self-illustrated poetry was published in London when she was in her early twenties. Her second book 'The Romance of Nature' was published in 1839, the same year she married her cousin Charles Meredith and moved first to New South Wales and then to Oyster Bay, Tasmania where she continued to write and paint. 'Notes and Sketches of New South Wales' was published in 1844 and 'My Home in Tasmania' in 1852. Meredith was an active participant in the production of plays, concerts and poetry readings in Hobart. Meredith's remarkable collection of writing and painting provide a clear picture of the life of white Australian settlers spanning 50 years of the pioneer era of Tasmania.