The Getting of Wisdom

by Henry Handel Richardson

Overview

Australian author Henry Handel Richardson wrote a book titled The Getting of Wisdom.At the age of 12, the main character, Laura Tweedle Rambotham, is sent to a boarding school in Melbourne. The otherworldly Laura is shocked and humiliated by her educational experiences. She suffers as a result of telling her mother and classmates details about her family's background.This is a tale about innocence being ruined. None of the female students at the institution, nor the professors in general, come off as anything but arrogant and rude. Even Laura, who is so youthful, powerful, and idealistic at the beginning, gives in to the role that is expected of her.In Laura's story, a 15-year-old girl cheats on an exam but is spared punishment since God wasn't involved; otherwise, he would have held her accountable. The last time Laura leaves school, she is overcome with the urge to flee, and the last thing we see of her is a fast-diminishing form disappearing into a park.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789356568105
Publisher:	Double 9 Booksllp
Publication date:	04/22/2022
Pages:	204
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.47(d)

About the Author

Henry Handel Richardson (1870-1946) was the pen name of Australian novelist Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson. Born in East Melbourne, she was raised in a series of towns across Victoria with her mother and siblings following her father’s death. At thirteen, she left Maldon—where her mother worked as the local postmistress—to attend Presbyterian Ladies’ College in Melbourne. Her time there would inspire her bestselling coming-of-age novel The Getting of Wisdom (1910). Upon graduating in 1888, Richardson moved with her family to Germany to study music at the Leipzig Conservatorium. In 1894, she married John George Robertson, whom she met in Leipzig while he was studying German literature. They moved to London in 1903, where Richardson would publish Maurice Guest (1908), her debut novel. In 1912, Richardson returned to Australia to begin researching for her critically acclaimed trilogy The Fortunes of Richard Mahony, which consists of the novels Australia Felix (1917), The Way Home (1925), and Ultima Thule (1929). Partly based on her own family’s history, the trilogy earned praise from such figures as Sinclair Lewis for its startling depictions of a man’s decline due to mental illness and the lengths to which his wife must go to care for their young family.

Editorial Reviews

The Getting of Wisdom races ahead of the reader, succeeding by force of narrative and sheer charm…spontaneity and skill; the values of a whole society are seen here in microcosm through the lives of pupils and teachers.”

New Statesman