Overview

A riveting biography that shines a shaft of light on a hidden but captivating life, told with the pace, depth, and psychological richness of a great novel.

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9781950354771

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An illuminating portrait of a Victorian wife and mother who was rescued from silence...A sparkling biography and cultural history. STARRED REVIEW --Kirkus Reviews An Unconventional Wife, Mary Hoban's elegant biography of Julia Sorrell Arnold, who was born in Tasmania in 1826 and died in England 61 years later, challenges traditional notions of biography, examining a woman other writers might have ignored...An Unconventional Wife performs a worthy act of recovery in lucid prose, revealing an intelligent woman caught up in the struggles and limitations of her time. --Weekend Australian In An Unconventional Wife, Mary Hoban has given us an inconvenient heroine: a woman hobbled by her times, champing at the bit, going nowhere but telling us everything. Pieced together through impeccable research and told with all the urgency and intrigue of a soap opera, the story of Julia Sorell demands recognition of--and respect for--a woman who would otherwise be lost to history. Utterly charming. --Clare Wright An exceptional exercise in factual delving and a feat of imaginative sympathy. --Gideon Haigh A magisterial work of biography, utterly assured in research and style. This compelling and moving book reanimates the lost life of Julia Sorell Arnold, a spirited, independent woman in an age when women were expected to be quiet. With deep insight and empathy Hoban brings to life Julia and Tom's troublesome marriage. Their passionate but fractious relationship speaks directly to the irascible relations between women and men in our own divisive times. This book is a remarkable achievement by an expert and gifted biographer. --Rod Jones Hoban has uncovered the story of a woman, admired by many friends and family, who refused to bow to the customs of the day, spoke her mind when others would have kept quiet and stayed true to her faith...a remarkable life that needed to be told. --Barry Reynolds, Herald Sun An Unconventional Wife is superbly written, and skilfully draws on a number of diverse sources, compensating for a lamented lack--an intimate diary kept by Julia herself. Mary Hoban has got to the kernel of this story, since she has correctly conceived it as an exercise in the recuperation of women's history. --Jim Davidson, Australian Book Review Hoban portrays her as an independently-minded woman at a time when women were expected to conform to their husband's views. --Andrea Ripper, Courier Mail

Author Information

Mary Hoban is a Melbourne-based writer and historian. Her first book was a history of Melbourne's celebrated Queen Victoria Market. She has also authored, co-authored, and edited various textbooks, papers, and journal articles on Australian and Asian history and cultural studies. For some years she was employed in the philatelic section of Australia Post as a writer, editor, and researcher for the nation's postage stamps, where she wrote and edited books on subjects ranging from Christmas Island to the Antarctic, from royalty to rugby. She holds a graduate diploma in biography and life writing from Monash University and an MA in public history from the University of Technology, Sydney. In 2012 she was awarded the inaugural Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship to write the biography of Julia Sorell Arnold.

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