This is the first book read and my first review for the Australian Women Writer’s Challenge, 2017.
Georgiana Molloy, the mind that shines, is a biography of one of Australia’s first female botanical collectors who to quote the biography: ‘Her life began where England and Scotland meet, near the wide mouth of the Solway Firth . . .’ I lived in the southwest of Western Australia for several years so I know the area where the biography is set and Bernice Barry brings it to life. Georgiana was self-taught and her specimens of indigenous flora from Augusta and Busselton are now held in some of the world’s leading herbarium collections.
It is a well-researched book and obviously a labour of love for the author who is a fine writer.
The book with its lovely cover, exquisite photos of wildflowers throughout, and other images that enhance the narrative is one to read and keep on your bookshelf forever. And the endnotes are a great source of further reading.
Bernice Barry lives on WA’s southwest coast near the place where Georgiana Molloy arrived in 1830. Bernice has been researching the lives of Georgiana and John Molloy for more than a decade.
I loved this biography and I hope it ends up on every non-fiction and biography shortlist. And wins.
Good reading,
Cheers, Elise
what elise wrote 