Georgiana: A Biography Of Georgiana Mccrae, Painter, Diarist, Pioneer (SIGNED)
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Edition: First ed.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Worn/faded, no tears
Pages: Good
Markings: Signed with inscription
In the rugged and untamed landscape of colonial Australia, one extraordinary woman picked up her brush, opened her diary, and quietly changed the course of a nation's cultural memory. Georgiana is the definitive biography of Georgiana McCrae (1804–1890), a woman of remarkable talent and resilience who forged an identity as a painter, meticulous diarist, and courageous pioneer against the formidable odds of nineteenth-century frontier life. Brenda Niall chronicles McCrae's journey from her privileged Scottish origins — as the illegitimate daughter of the Duke of Gordon — through her emigration to the Port Phillip district of Australia, where she raised a family and cultivated an artistic practice in conditions that would have defeated lesser spirits. Drawing on McCrae's own vivid diaries and a rich catalogue of her paintings, Niall reconstructs a life that illuminates the social, domestic, and cultural fabric of early Melbourne with extraordinary precision. Niall's prose is measured and authoritative, balancing scholarly rigour with a narrative warmth that brings Georgiana McCrae fully and compellingly to life. The biography argues persuasively for McCrae's place not merely as a historical curiosity but as a foundational figure in Australian art and letters — a woman whose meticulous observations of colonial society constitute an irreplaceable historical record. Complemented by a catalogue of the plates compiled by Caroline Clemente, Georgiana is both a work of art history and a deeply human portrait of ambition, adaptation, and survival. For anyone who believes they already know the story of Australia's cultural beginnings, this biography will prove them gloriously wrong.
Author: Brenda Niall
Format: Hardback
Published: 1994, Melbourne University Press at the Miegunyah Press
Genre: Biography
Edition: First ed.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Worn/faded, no tears
Pages: Good
Markings: Signed with inscription
In the rugged and untamed landscape of colonial Australia, one extraordinary woman picked up her brush, opened her diary, and quietly changed the course of a nation's cultural memory. Georgiana is the definitive biography of Georgiana McCrae (1804–1890), a woman of remarkable talent and resilience who forged an identity as a painter, meticulous diarist, and courageous pioneer against the formidable odds of nineteenth-century frontier life. Brenda Niall chronicles McCrae's journey from her privileged Scottish origins — as the illegitimate daughter of the Duke of Gordon — through her emigration to the Port Phillip district of Australia, where she raised a family and cultivated an artistic practice in conditions that would have defeated lesser spirits. Drawing on McCrae's own vivid diaries and a rich catalogue of her paintings, Niall reconstructs a life that illuminates the social, domestic, and cultural fabric of early Melbourne with extraordinary precision. Niall's prose is measured and authoritative, balancing scholarly rigour with a narrative warmth that brings Georgiana McCrae fully and compellingly to life. The biography argues persuasively for McCrae's place not merely as a historical curiosity but as a foundational figure in Australian art and letters — a woman whose meticulous observations of colonial society constitute an irreplaceable historical record. Complemented by a catalogue of the plates compiled by Caroline Clemente, Georgiana is both a work of art history and a deeply human portrait of ambition, adaptation, and survival. For anyone who believes they already know the story of Australia's cultural beginnings, this biography will prove them gloriously wrong.