Person

Richardson, Henry Handel, 1870-1946

• Richardson, Ethel Florence Lindesay, 1870-1946
• Richardson, Ethel Henrietta, 1870-1946
• Richardson, Henrietta, 1870-1946
• Robertson, Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson, 1870-1946
• Robertson, Ethel Henrietta Richardson, 1870-1946
• Robertson, Henrietta Richardson, 1870-1946

1870-1946

Henry Handel Richardson, pseudonym for Ethel Florence Lindesay Robertson, was born in Melbourne in 1870, the daughter of English migrants. In her major work, the trilogy The Fortunes of Richard Mahony, she draws heavily on autobiographical family experience and her childhood environment. From 1883 to 1887 she attended the Presbyterian Ladies College, Melbourne, and used aspects of this experience in her novel The Getting of Wisdom (1910). In 1888 her mother took her to Europe where she trained as a concert pianist, discovered European literature and thought, and met her future husband, J.G. Robertson, a doctoral student of German literature. They were married in 1895 and after some years in Strasbourg, moved to England where Robertson was appointed to the Chair of German Literature at the University of London. Richardson's most significant supporter was her husband who made it possible for her to devote her life almost entirely to writing. After the 'Mahony' trilogy followed The Young Cosima and a collection of stories. She also kept up an extensive correspondence with friends and other literati, but did not disclose her gender to some of her correspondents. After her husband's death in 1933, she moved to Sussex with her secretary and companion Olga Roncoroni. She died in 1946, and her unfinished autobiography Myself When Young was published posthumously.

Revised, AM, 08-Jul-2020.

Added other forms of names and LCNA number, AM, 08-Jul-2020.