Books with title The Getting of Wisdom

The Getting of Wisdom, a wicked and satirical novel on the pain and confusion of growing up, first appeared in 1910. A century later, it has lost none of its bite. One of the most memorable characters in Australian fiction, Laura Rambotham, aged 12, enters the portals of an exclusive girls' school eager to be accepted. But this precocious country girl is snubbed and ridiculed by her fellow students, who are richer, more attractive, and more adept at dealing with life's hypocrisies.

Laura, a spirited and unconventional heroine, attempts to adapt herself to the discipline of school and the unrelenting judgements of her classmates. The freedom of her country childhood seems far behind, as she struggles for dignity and true friendship'Fifty-five heads turned as if by clockwork, and fifty-five pairs of eyes were levelled at the small girl in the white apron who meekly followed Mrs Gurley down the length of the dining-room. Laura crimsoned under the unexpected ordeal, and tried to fix her attention on the flouncing of Mrs Gurley's dress. The room seemed hundreds of feet long, and not a single person at the tea-tables but took stock of her. The girls made no scruple of leaning backwards and forwards, behind and before their neighbours, in order to see her better, and even the governesses were not above having a look.'Henry Handel Richardson's first novel is a coming-of-age novel story, set in turn-of-the-century Melbourne. When clever and imaginative Laura Rambotham leaves her home to attend a prestigious ladies' college, she finds herself compromising her ideals in an effort to fit in. The Getting of Wisdom is a portrait of an artistic and unwieldy soul chafing against stuffy ordinariness, told with great empathy and passion.

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Ethel Florence Richardson was a prominent Australian writer who wrote under the pen name Henry Handel Richardson. Some of Richardson’s most famous works include The Getting of Wisdom, Maurice Guest, and The Fortunes of Richard Mahony. The Getting of Wisdom, published in 1910, centers around Laura Tweedle Rambotham, the eldest child of a country family who is sent to a boarding school in Melbourne. Laura struggles to fit in with her wealthier peers.

It is the story of a young girl Laura who encounters the conventionality of school society with great persistence. The story starts when admitted in a boarding school in Melbourne, Laura tries hard to adjust but as the author writes "She could not know then…the right hole…seeming unfitness prove to be only another aspect of…special fitness." Appealing!

"Possesses poignant insight." -Current Opinion "In his new work Henry Handel Richardson has made a study of the development of a young girl with a skill as remarkable in its way as that of 'Maurice Guest.' In the ordinary sense 'The Getting of Wisdom' is not a novel at all. Mr. Richardson's story is the growth of his heroine, and he has succeeded in placing before us a portrait of a living person. The thoughts, the emotions and the whole attitude toward life of a girl who has just ceased to be a child are revealed with a power and insight that set the book apart. Both the importance and the interest of the theme are apparent; Mr. Richardson has treated it in the spirit of the artist rather than the scientist." -Publishers Weekly "It is of a girl in her early teens struggling to find her soul and save it alive at an Australian school for girls....There is the same poignant insight, the same remarkable gift for breathing the breath of life into places as well as people." -Seven Arts

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Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson, later Mrs. Robertson (1870-1946) was an Australian author who also wrote under the pseudonym Henry Handel Richardson. She excelled in the arts and music during her time at the Presbyterian Ladies' College in Melbourne and her mother took the family (her father having died in 1879) to Europe in 1888 to enable Ethel to continue her musical studies at the Leipzig Conservatorium in which city she set her first novel, Maurice Guest (1908). Richardson also wrote a single volume of short stories and an autobiography that greatly illuminates the settings of her novels, although her Australian Dictionary of Biography entry asserts that is somewhat unreliable. The Fortunes of Richard Mahony (1930) was her famous trilogy - consisting of Australia Felix (1917), The Way Home (1925), and Ultima Thule (1929) - about the slow decline of a successful Australian physician and his family due to his character flaws and brain disease. It was highly praised by Sinclair Lewis, among others. Amongst her other works are: The Getting of Wisdom (1910), Two Studies (1931) and The End of a Childhood (1934).