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biography
Essays & reportage
The lost thesis
Sylvia Martin
10 February 2020
The discovery of a remarkable piece of writing by Aileen Palmer adds poignancy to her later life
Books & arts
Consequences, unintended and intended
Janet McCalman
12 December 2019
Books
| Jean Blackburn played a central role in a wave of educational reform
Essays & reportage
That quite indescribable miracle
Desley Deacon
10 December 2019
Inspired by Nellie Melba, Judith Anderson carved out a career on stage and screen
Essays & reportage
Professor of everything
Tom Griffiths
3 December 2019
George Seddon helped his readers see Australia from the inside
Books & arts
There is always a sequel
Jock Given
22 November 2019
Books
| As Disney+ sets out to teach Netflix and others about streaming video, the chief executive of Walt Disney’s company shares lessons learned on the way to the top
Summer season
“But no one remembers her!”
Cathy Perkins
6 November 2019
Literary history hasn’t always been kind to poet, novelist and journalist Zora Cross
Books & arts
On perfectionism
Zora Simic
6 November 2019
Books
| “In harming myself, I was harming others,” writes Bri Lee in her follow-up to
Eggshell Skull
From the archive
Irresistible attraction
Richard Johnstone
24 October 2019
Despite disappearing from public view for decades, Olive Cotton was still gripped by photography’s artistic potential
From the archive
Penny Wong, unauthorised
Jane Goodall
18 October 2019
The popular Labor senator was fortunate in her biographer
Books & arts
A poet, a bar, a wartime day
Glyn Davis
8 October 2019
Books
| Was W.H. Auden right to doubt the poem but wrong to suppress its affirming flame?
National affairs
Remembering Tim Fischer
Nathan Hollier
24 August 2019
The former deputy prime minister’s publisher recalls an unexpected friendship
Books & arts
Chardonnay socialist
Ryan Cropp
19 August 2019
Books
| Is there more to the story of the great reforming premier, Don Dunstan?
Books & arts
Ghosted
Susan Lever
13 August 2019
Books
| Two women’s experience of deafness, a century apart
Essays & reportage
A Margaret Fulton recipe always works
Sian Supski
25 July 2019
Published two years before
The Female Eunuch
, Margaret Fulton’s first cookbook had its own impact
Books & arts
Rescued from the footnotes
Sylvia Martin
25 June 2019
Books
| Maurice and Doris Blackburn resisted the pull of the mainstream
Essays & reportage
On the Age’s river of gold
Iola Mathews
21 June 2019
Extract
| A former journalist recalls life on the newspaper during the era of legendary editor Graham Perkin
Essays & reportage
The game changer
Robert Milliken
10 May 2019
A new statue of Aboriginal rights leader William Ferguson links politics past and present
Essays & reportage
“Hard ill-fortune”: a lost distant cousin and a place called Pozières
Tom Hyland
25 April 2019
A chance reference leads to a bloody battlefield and a different Australia
Books & arts
Where are you at?
Drusilla Modjeska
19 April 2019
Books
| Julienne van Loon asks all the right questions in this exploration of life in a precarious world
From the archive
A woman interrupted
Drusilla Modjeska
3 April 2019
Having grown up sheltered from the winds of modernism, painter Nora Heysen took a fresh turn in 1930s London
Recovered Lives
Why don’t we know their names?
Melanie Nolan
8 March 2019
Introducing our collection of articles on Australian history’s missing women, in collaboration with the
Australian Dictionary of Biography
Recovered Lives
Forthright and hardworking, this corsetmaker founded a retail empire
Barbara Dawson
8 March 2019
Ann Hordern (c. 1791–1871), founder of Anthony Hordern & Sons
Recovered Lives
The “incorrigible” convict with a sharp tongue
Nichola Garvey
8 March 2019
Catherine Henrys (c. 1806–55)
Recovered Lives
“High time” for the Huddersfield Four
Nichola Garvey
8 March 2019
Lydia Clay (1811–58), Elizabeth Quarmby (1822–93), Mary Ann Wentworth (1824–1911) and Ruth Richardson (1817–58), transportees
Recovered Lives
Farmer, businesswoman — and founder of Penfolds
Julie McIntyre
8 March 2019
Mary Penfold (1816–95)
Recovered Lives
Pioneering medic blazed the trail
Karen Fox
8 March 2019
Iza Coghlan (1868–1946), doctor
Recovered Lives
This widely travelled public servant knew the costs of migration
Peter Davies
8 March 2019
Lucy Hicks (1833–1909), administrator
Recovered Lives
How “the Captain’s Lady” created her own legend
Meg Foster
8 March 2019
Mary Ann Bugg (1834–1905), Indigenous bushranger
Recovered Lives
A brief life seen through “wild bright eyes”
Alison Alexander
8 March 2019
Mathinna (c. 1835—?), Port Sorell woman
Recovered Lives
A comet across the feminist landscape
Deborah Jordan
8 March 2019
Frances Georgina Watts Higgins (1860–1948), landscape architect and feminist
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