 | |
| Author | Elizabeth Jolley |
|---|---|
| Country | Australia |
| Language | English |
| Series | Vera Wright |
| Genre | Fiction |
| Publisher | Viking |
Publication date | 1993 |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 182 pp. |
| ISBN | 0670852651 |
| Preceded by | Cabin Fever |
| Followed by | The Orchard Thieves |
The Georges' Wife (1993) is a novel by Australian writer Elizabeth Jolley. It was originally published by Viking in Australia in 1993. [1]
The novel was the third in the author's Vera Wright trilogy, along with My Father's Moon (1989) and Cabin Fever (1990).
With one child in tow Vera Wright goes to live with Eleanor and Oliver George, becoming maid to one and mistress to the other.
Writing in The Canberra Times Moira Najdecki noted: "The Georges' Wife, from the opening chapter to the last lines, is a wonderful treat. Elizabeth Jolley, in her inimitable fashion, insinuates her readers into the continuing life and liaisons of the gauche and trusting Vera, whose early experiences have been recounted in My Father's Moon and its sequel, Cabin Fever...The Georges' Wife is ineffably sad but also very funny. Ultimately, Vera survives. Her uncomplicated and pragmatic nature means that she can rise above hurt and disappointment and appreciate life's smorgasbord of experiences." [2]
In LiNQ, the literature journal of the University of North Queensland, Lettie Hopkins writes: "Elizabeth Jolley here explores life in the margins, and within this, the nature of families, their reconstruction and their dislocations; the nature of mothering; the power of the father; the nature of cultural reproduction and the breaking of taboos; the innocence of uninhibited passions versus the adherence to social conventions; the role of the imagination in recreating memory and in creating identity; the elationship between the real and the imagined, and further, the multiplicity of realities; the power of the word and the power of the sign, and the oscillation and fluctuation between the two; the value and dissolution of boundaries." [3]
After its original publication in 1993 in Australia by publisher Viking [4] the novel was later reprinted as follows:
The novel won the Age Book of the Year Award for Fiction (or Imaginative Writing) in 1993. [7]
Monica Elizabeth Jolley AO was an English-born Australian writer who settled in Western Australia in the late 1950s and forged an illustrious literary career there. She was 53 when her first book was published, and she went on to publish fifteen novels, four short story collections and three non-fiction books, publishing well into her 70s and achieving significant critical acclaim. She was also a pioneer of creative writing teaching in Australia, counting many well-known writers such as Tim Winton among her students at Curtin University.
The Australian Literature Society Gold Medal is awarded annually by the Association for the Study of Australian Literature for "an outstanding literary work in the preceding calendar year." From 1928 to 1974 it was awarded by the Australian Literature Society, then from 1983 by the Association for the Study of Australian Literature, when the two organisations were merged.
The Age Book of the Year Awards were annual literary awards presented by Melbourne's The Age newspaper. The awards were first presented in 1974. After 1998, they were presented as part of the Melbourne Writers Festival. Initially, two awards were given, one for fiction, the other for non-fiction work, but in 1993, a poetry award in honour of Dinny O'Hearn was added. The criteria were that the works be "of outstanding literary merit and express Australian identity or character," and be published in the year before the award was made. One of the award-winners was chosen as The Age Book of the Year. The awards were discontinued in 2013.
The Well Dressed Explorer (1962) is a Miles Franklin Award-winning novel by Australian author Thea Astley. This novel shared the award with The Cupboard Under the Stairs by George Turner.
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