Louisa Atkinson
Louisa Atkinson was a pioneering Australian author born in the 1830s to an English farming family. Orphaned early by the death of her father, her childhood was marked by instability, including her mother's struggles with legal battles and subsequent relocations. By the age of twelve, Atkinson had settled back in Oldbury, where she cultivated a deep interest in local flora and fauna, which influenced her later writing. She began her literary career in her teens, writing nature articles for newspapers and eventually publishing her first novel, "Gertrude, the Immigrant," in 1857. Atkinson is recognized as the first female novelist born in Australia, producing a total of seven novels that reflected the social and environmental changes occurring during her lifetime. Her works were serialized in various newspapers, showcasing her insights into colonial life and the impact of settlement on indigenous populations. Despite facing health challenges, including tuberculosis, Atkinson continued her literary pursuits until her untimely death shortly after childbirth at the age of thirty-five. Her legacy remains significant in Australian literature, highlighting the experiences of women in a rapidly changing society.
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Subject Terms
Louisa Atkinson
Fiction and Nonfiction Writer
- Born: February 25, 1834
- Birthplace: Oldbury, Sutton Forest, New South Wales, Australia
- Died: April 28, 1872
- Place of death: Swanton, Sutton Forest, New South Wales, Australia
Biography
Louisa Atkinson was born in Australia during the 1830’s to an English-born farming family. Her father was successful at his trade and a magistrate in the town of Oldbury. He died two months after Atkinson was born, throwing the family into turmoil. Atkins’s mother remarried when she was two years old, after struggling to manage the family’s ranches herself.
When Atkinson was five her mother left her second husband, abandoning the family ranches and large house. Atkinson spent the next seven months of her life in a small shack in virtually unsettled territory. Atkinson’s mother then moved her four children to Sydney, where she had to petition the courts to be named guardian of her children, due to her estrangement from her second husband and the complexities of her first husband’s estate. Thus began a contentious, drawn-out legal battle that lasted six years and consumed much of Atkinson’s childhood.
Her experiences led to a negative opinion of lawyers, a theme that appeared in several of her later novels. When Atkinson was twelve and the matter of custody settled, the family left Sydney and returned to Oldbury. Atkinson spent the next eight years educating herself about local flora and fauna, writing, drawing, and painting. She also taught herself taxidermy, in order to better learn about native animals.
Atkinson began her writing career composing nature articles for various newspapers. At the age of nineteen, in 1853, Atkinson began publishing regular articles in the Illustrated Sydney News. Starting in 1860, she began to write for the Sydney Morning Herald and the Sydney Mail. In 1858, Atkinson and her mother relocated to Kurrajong Heights out of concern for Atkinson’s health, as she suffered from tuberculosis.
Atkinson is considered the first female novelist born in Australia. Born only fifty years after Great Britain began colonizing Australia, the continent was a sparsely populated frontier during Atkinson’s lifetime. Atkinson’s experiences of the rapid changes in Australia, as convicts gave way to pioneers and the aboriginal people declined, were the basis of her novels. Her first novel, Gertrude, the Immigrant: A Tale of Colonial Life, which originally appeared as a serial in the Sydney Morning Herald, was published in 1857. Atkinson published her next novel, Cowanda, The Veteran’s Grant: An Australian Story, two years later. Atkinson wrote a total of seven novels, all of which first appeared as serials in newspapers.
Around 1865, Atkinson, suffering a reoccurrence of her tuberculosis, returned to Oldbury with her now-invalid mother to live with Atkinson’s brother. After her mother’s death, Atkinson married at age thirty-five. Her husband was James Calvert, a local hero. She gave birth to a daughter in 1872. Eighteen days after giving birth, Atkinson suffered a heart attack and died.