The Way Home

The Fortunes of Richard Mahony #2

by Henry Handel Richardson, Leonie Kramer (Introduction)

The Fortunes of Richard Mahony was originally published as a trilogy between 1917 and 1929. It is without question Henry Handel Richardson's most important work, and Richard Mahony, a complex portrayal of Richardson's own father, is the first substantial character in Australian fiction. Richardson's brilliant analysis of human inadequacy, of the gulf between ideal and achievement, and of the complexities of circumstance, environment and human frailty, make her one of Australia's most distinguished novelists. In The Fortunes of Richard Mahony she brings together knowledge of a significant period of Australian history, an understanding of human weakness, and a grasp of the principles and techniques of the best European and Russian writers of the nineteenth century.

The Way Home, the second volume in the trilogy, is a study of disillusionment. Mahony, having bought a medical practice on the south coast of England, discovers that his years in the colonies have alienated him from provincial English society. He returns to Australia and posperity. A second visit to Europe, a 'Grand Tour', is cut short by the failure of his financial affairs, and Mahony is recalled abruptly, and finally, to Australia. The trilogy is completed in Ultima Thule.

Genres: Australia, Historical Fiction, British Literature, Fiction

269 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1925

About the author

Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson Robertson for mixed motives used and adopted Henry Handel Richardson, a pen-name that probably militated against recognition especially when feminist literary history began. Maurice Guest was highly praised in Germany when it first appeared in translation in 1912, but received a bad press in England, though it influenced other novelists. The publishers bowdlerized the language for the second imprint. The trilogy suffered from the long intervals between its three volumes: Australia Felix (1917); The Way Home (1925) and Ultima Thule (1929). The last brought overnight fame and the three volumes were published as one in 1930. Her fame in England was short-lived; as late as 1977, when Virago Press republished The Getting of Wisdom, some London critics referred to the author as 'Mr Richardson'. Her short stories, The End of a Childhood (1934), and the novel, The Young Cosima (1939), had lukewarm receptions.

Henry Handel Richardson's place in Australian literature is important and secure. The Fortunes is an archetypal novel of the country, written about the great upsurge of nineteenth-century Western capitalism fuelled by the gold discoveries. With relentless objectivity it surveys all the main issues which were to define the direction of white Australian society from the 1850s onwards, within the domestic framework of a marriage. Powerfully symbolic in a realistic mode it is, as an English critic said in 1973, 'one of the great inexorable books of the world'.

Reviews

[Calzean · Rating 3 out of 5]

The second in Mahoney's trilogy and the focus is on his disillusionment. Back in England he struggles to make a living in a land where he is considered to be a backward colonial. Frustrated he returns to Australia and finds his investments have boomed and he is now rich. He quits his work to focus on looking good, buying things and keeping up with the Jones'. Polly, now renamed as Mary, goes along with her husbands various schemes but has grown now to be more assertive.
Richard remains unfulfilled, sells up, and thinking the grass is always greener returns once again to England.

[Chrissie]

Second in a series based on the author's father.

*******************

*The Getting of Wisdom 4 stars

The Fortunes of Richard Mahony
*Australia Felix 4 stars
*The Way Home TBR
*Ultima Thule TBR

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Magnificent. This trilogy is brilliant.

[Rod Hunt · Rating 3 out of 5]

A classic cliff-hanger ending.

[Laura]

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