Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Getting of Wisdom
    The Getting of Wisdom
    The Getting of Wisdom
    Ebook310 pages4 hours

    The Getting of Wisdom

    By Henry Handel Richardson

    3.5/5

    ()

    Switch to audiobook
    Read preview
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateDec 31, 1960
    Author

    Henry Handel Richardson

    Henry Handel Richardson (1870-1946) was the pen name of Australian novelist Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson. Born in East Melbourne, she was raised in a series of towns across Victoria with her mother and siblings following her father’s death. At thirteen, she left Maldon—where her mother worked as the local postmistress—to attend Presbyterian Ladies’ College in Melbourne. Her time there would inspire her bestselling coming-of-age novel The Getting of Wisdom (1910). Upon graduating in 1888, Richardson moved with her family to Germany to study music at the Leipzig Conservatorium. In 1894, she married John George Robertson, whom she met in Leipzig while he was studying German literature. They moved to London in 1903, where Richardson would publish Maurice Guest (1908), her debut novel. In 1912, Richardson returned to Australia to begin researching for her critically acclaimed trilogy The Fortunes of Richard Mahony, which consists of the novels Australia Felix (1917), The Way Home (1925), and Ultima Thule (1929). Partly based on her own family’s history, the trilogy earned praise from such figures as Sinclair Lewis for its startling depictions of a man’s decline due to mental illness and the lengths to which his wife must go to care for their young family.

    Read more from Henry Handel Richardson

    Related authors

    Related to The Getting of Wisdom

    Related ebooks

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The Education of Mrs. R.

      Sep 6, 2022

      An adolescent shriek woke her. Cockerels, she thought, cockerels, with a wry twist to the word. She lay in the dark listening. There was no use in covering her head; the screaming still came through. The soloist was suddenly submerged in the chorus.

      13 min read

    • Article

      The Library of Gromma

      Jul 10, 2023

      Zac was sweating and panting as he reached the top of the hill. The crooked beams of the library loomed over him. He dropped the buckets of water, swore at the few drops that spilled, and escaped the piercing morning sun in the shade of the library.

      22 min read

    • Article

      The Library Of Gromma

      Feb 10, 2021

      Zac was sweating and panting as he reached the top of the hill. The crooked beams of the library loomed over him. He dropped the buckets of water, swore at the few drops that spilt, and escaped the piercing morning sun in the shade of the library. He

      22 min read

    • Article

      THE BLACK SPIDER Part Two

      Oct 30, 2019

      THE BLACK SPIDER Part Two
      25 min read

    • Article

      Dolly’s Star Turn

      Aug 9, 2023

      Dolly’s Star Turn
      7 min read

    • Article

      Dolly’s Star Turn

      Jul 12, 2023

      Dolly’s Star Turn
      7 min read

    • Article

      Dolly’s Star Turn

      Jul 12, 2023

      Dolly’s Star Turn
      7 min read

    • Article

      Come the DAWN

      Apr 8, 2020

      Come the DAWN
      21 min read

    • Article

      Better

      Aug 12, 2019

      Better
      18 min read

    • Article

      Layover

      Sep 8, 2020

      Lara was supposed to have breakfast with Selin, a friend from middle school who had a long layover in Paris. It was eight thirty, and Lara was frustrated not to have the morning to herself before teaching in the afternoon. She loved the early, luxuri

      13 min read

    • Article

      Part 2 SOCKS

      Apr 1, 2022

      Part 2 SOCKS
      7 min read

    • Article

      Remains

      Sep 1, 2017

      THIS IS what you think your mother’s remains will look like. The ash will be black, like all that soot in the fireplace. It will be heavy, like wet sand. There will not be too much of it. It will fit in a small urn with intricate designs on the borde

      6 min read

    • Article

      Only a Fragrance

      Sep 1, 2022

      Only a Fragrance
      3 min read

    • Article

      Echoes

      Jun 22, 2022

      Echoes
      9 min read

    • Article

      Dust To Dust

      May 7, 2020

      Dust To Dust
      8 min read

    • Article

      STEPPING Out

      Feb 26, 2020

      STEPPING Out
      10 min read

    • Article

      Rose - Tinted Glasses

      Nov 10, 2021

      From the corner of her eye, Becca watched a small pack of drunk pixies adding salt into her grandmother’s bone china sugar pot. The sugar pot was the oldest thing in the house, even older than grandmother herself. There would be hell to pay if it bro

      12 min read

    • Article

      Love And The LAND GIRL

      May 12, 2021

      Love And The LAND GIRL
      9 min read

    • Article

      A Fairytale

      May 9, 2019

      A Fairytale
      6 min read

    • Article

      A Helping Hand

      Aug 8, 2022

      Rose watched her son being pushed to the back of the queue for the zipwire yet again. It wasn’t only that Charlie seemed so much smaller than the boys and girls who looked to be about his age, which made the four-year-old easier to shunt to the rear

      6 min read

    • Article

      A Hampstead MYSTERY

      Oct 12, 2022

      A Hampstead MYSTERY
      9 min read

    • Article

      Heatstroke

      Jun 8, 2020

      Languid. The word that formed in Rachel’s mind was languid. The figure on the lawn was languid. Its limbs were loose, its joints fluid. Its hands and feet seemed too heavy for the bones that held them. It was draped over the sun lounger, dripping fro

      5 min read

    • Article

      The Glass Ceiling

      Aug 21, 2023

      ‘You’re late.” Evangeline glanced up from her workbench, neck already aching from the intricate creation before her: a hat decorated with no fewer than six hummingbirds, pinned to netting so fine it would look as though the creatures were, indeed, fl

      6 min read

    • Article

      Reunion

      Nov 17, 2022

      Reunion
      7 min read

    • Article

      A Rummage In The Cupboard

      Nov 3, 2022

      A Rummage In The Cupboard
      6 min read

    Reviews for The Getting of Wisdom

    3.5/5

    94 ratings12 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      A lovely book, set in the 1890s but published in 1910, that approaches the "new child at school" trope so popular in British literature of the time and subverts it with a subtly Aussie skewer. The female writer (pseudonymously a man) creates some believable characters, especially in the heroine Laura, and ultimately tells the tale of a square peg who refuses to "be approved" by the round hole of her school, and thus of society. Is it a feminist novel? I'm not sure. But it's the kind of children's literature that could still be appreciated, I hope, by another generation.
    • 2/5
      Can't believe I gave this books 5 stars on first reading. I could barely finish it on reread. Unrelenting dreariness which I kept expecting to let up and it continued till the end.
    • 4/5
      This Virago Modern Classic is about a twelve-year old girl sent to boarding school from her home in the country where she lived with her Mom and sister and two brothers. The title is a bit of an oxymoron in that boarding school doesn't teach her to be wise at all, but to fit in. Kind of sad.
    • 4/5
      This is a classic boarding school novel, but in contrast to the typical chronicle of boys’ hijinks, The Getting of Wisdom offers a feminine perspective. Laura Ramsbotham is from a modest Australian family, where her widowed mother earns a living as a seamstress. She has scrimped and saved to provide Laura with higher education, soLaura is shipped off to a girls’ boarding school when she’s about 11. Anyone who has been an 11-year-old girl knows how difficult it is to assimilate into established social groups, and Laura is no exception. The head of school and the teachers -- all women who should know better -- are of the “spare the rod and spoil the child” variety, and just expect everyone to get on with it, already. And of course Laura does, with some success but also pain and heartbreak.The early chapters of this book are exceptionally well done, as you can’t help feeling sad for Laura and applauding even the tiniest positive happening. Laura eventually makes a couple friends, and then commits a huge blunder that is difficult for her to recover from. I felt the story lost some pacing after that and her last few years of school felt rushed. But the novel ends with an evocative metaphor that was, in fact, the perfect summing up of Laura’s school experience.
    • 5/5
      How I love this book… just as much now as when I read it for the first time as a teenager! Set at the turn of the 20th century, it is the story of Laura Rambotham, a clever and spirited child, who leaves home to attend a prestigious Melbourne boarding school for young ladies at the insistence of her mother, even though it is a financial struggle for the family. Laura finds herself in a social setting that she neither understands, nor that understands her. She is a misfit who struggles valiantly to blend in and win friends—to be like the others—but never quite succeeds. This creates some sad, but also amusing incidents. Ultimately, the book is a celebration of the freedom that comes from being yourself—a poignant, timeless lesson for us all.
    • 5/5
      I am gobsmacked.The novel begins as an entertaining tale of a headstrong young Australian girl going to meet the world at boarding school. It gradually evolves into a subtle, simple, and stunningly real observation of the pressures of conformity and the intolerance of naïveté, which, when paired with a strong desire to be accepted, can lead to many and often rending responses in an imaginative young person.Yet it is not a tragedy. I am left moved, affectionate, a little worried about the future, and yet joyful at the intactness of the protagonist's resilient soul.It is the rare sort of book that provokes deep self-reflection and a nudge in the direction of peace-making with self and life, and in this way brings to mind [[George Eliot]]'s [Middlemarch].Bravo, Ms Richardson.
    • 4/5
      I don’t know a great deal about Ethel Richardson – who adopted a male pseudonym when she wrote – but I do know that this story, the story of an Australian girl sent to boarding school, is said to be autobiographical, and, if that is the case, I suspect that I would like her very much.The book dates from 1910, but the story that it tells could easily have happened years earlier or years later.I loved twelve- year old Laura Rambotham. At home she was a benevolent queen, ruling over her younger siblings, leading them in wonderful games, enchanting them with lovely stories; while her widowed mother worked had as a needlewoman to support her children, and give them the education that they needed to get on in the world,Of course her mother sent Laura to school, of course Laura was not happy about it, and of course neither could quite see the other’s point of view.Miss Richardson began her story beautifully, illuminating her characters and their situations with both clarity and subtlety.I had high hopes for the school story that was to come.Laura struggled to fit in with her school-mate. They were from the town, and she was from a rural backwater. They were from wealthy families, she was the daughter of a widow with aspirations …. but Laura was set apart by more that that.She was artistic she was creative. She couldn’t understand that no one shared her appreciation of the writing of Sir Walter Scott, that no one appreciated the descriptions of the English countryside that she had to share. And nobody could really explain to her satisfaction why it was necessary to be able to be able to pinpoint English towns on a map, or to learn the foreign policy of Oliver Cromwell.And Laura never really learned to compromise, to learn from her mistakes, to do what she needed to do to get by.She did try to fit in, and often she did, but there were slips. She lost standing when it became known that her mother had to work to support her family. She lavishly embroidered her account of a day out to make a good story, but when the truth came out she was accused of deception and sent to Coventry.But I had to love Laura. Her letter’s home were a riot. I loved that she delighted the invitations to tea that the other girls dreaded, because it gave her a chance to examine new bookshelves, and that made the fear of being called on to recite or perform fade into insignificance. I loved her joy when an older girl look her under her wing; and her outrage when she found that she had a young man.Miss Richardson brought the school, and a wonderful cast of girls around Laura to life. It was very easy to believe in the time and the place and the story.There was just one wrong note at the very end of the story. Laura did something I wished she hadn’t, she wasn’t called to account for it, and she should have been. Maybe it was something she would have to live with, maybe there was to have been another story. But there wasn’t.This story ends as Laura leaves school, still not sure what her future might be, what it could be, what she wants it to be.It makes the point quite clearly that education offered nothing to the creative and the artistic.But it lacked structure – it was difficult to know how much time was passing – and it lacked a sense of purpose. There was no real journey, for Laura, no real lesson learned.Maybe that was the point ….Certainly this was a very fine school story, and an engaging and believable tale of one girl’s life at school.
    • 3/5
      This book was mentioned in Dictionary of Lost Words and I took the hint.Published in 1910 it tells the semi-autobiographical story of a girl from rural Australia going to boarding school in Melbourne, and her growing maturity in thought and action.The writing is good, and the lead character is very 'alive', making the whole thing an enjoyable experience. More than 100 years old now, I was taken by both how much the world had changed, and how so many things were much the same. Thought provoking.
    • 3/5
      Very much enjoyed this story of a bright, imaginative, bossy girl running smack into a society she doesn't understand and continues to fail to understand, hard as she tries to win friends and influence people.
    • 4/5
      Laura is sent to a private girls' school in Melbourne for her education. Her mother is adamant that this will happen even though they struggle financially. She believes it is the best way:

      "To a State school, I've always said it, my children shall never go - not if I have to beg the money to send them elsewhere."

      The Getting of Wisdom was published in 1910 and we still have this kind of conversation about private versus public education today.

      Laura is thrown in with the lions immediately, her Cousin Grace not at all tactful when they arrive at the school:

      "Oh my eye Betty Martin! Aren't I glad it isn't me that's going to school! It looks just like a prison."

      Laura appears flighty and thoughtless, acting before thinking. But she is observant, especially of the oddities of human relationships. Watching her Godmother's daughter and her boyfriend at a meeting, Laura is curious of the boy's compulsion to 'save' his lady even when the lady in question was not at all in distress. To me, This kind of observation makes her a unique girl of her time, unfortunately this is not an asset. Laura finds herself a misfit in her own home and at school. Partly for her behaviour, viewed as careless, and partly the expectations of her in both domains.

      School was a daily torture for me. I do not look back fondly on any of it. I wonder if this has any relevance to my attraction to coming-of-age novels (not that I wish to analyse myself). For many of us, school days bring back a lot of memories, good and bad; Laura creates quite a few bad memories:

      "...anxiety turned her into a porcupine, ready to erect her quills at a touch."

      Anyone remember that feeling?

      I often tell my friends that I spent my school days trying to fit in and spend the rest of my days trying to stand out. So when I read this sentence, I felt a concrete connection to the story:

      "The lesson went home; Laura began to model herself more and more on those around her; to grasp that the unpardonable sin is to vary from the common mould."

      I tell you about my relationship with novels: With contemporary fiction I feel I'm in a boat that's leaking and the water is at a point where at any moment it will spill over and I will sink. I don't move, I don't breathe, in the hope that I get to the end of the story without getting that sinking feeling. With the classics and fiction such as The Getting Of Wisdom, I feel like I'm on a sturdy boat, basking in the sun, relaxed, arms stretched out, and enjoying the ride.

      This was a nice ride.
    • 3/5
      Wisdom as conditioned stuffiness--Obsessive Laura is appealing nonetheless, but this novel doesn't know where to go
    • 4/5
      This is one of the classics of Australian literature, a hectic, ironic description of a young girl's experience at a classy but morally and intellectually stultifying boarding school in Melbourne somewhere around 1900. She arrives there lively, spontaneous and imaginative; when she leaves four or five years later she's turned into a calculating, rather snobbish hypocrite. In the meantime she faces humiliation from classmates finding out about her family's relative poverty (her mother is a widow who works to support the children) and she goes through all the classic boarding school experiences: "crushes", jealousies, deceptions, religious and literary enthusiasms, bullying and being bullied, etc. But it all happens at a breathless pace, and we really get the feeling that poor Laura has no time to draw breath and grow up in peace.It's a formidable attack on contemporary notions of what middle-class young women were supposed to grow up into, as well as on the low quality of the education available to them. And by the standards of the time, it's also pretty outspoken about things like the total lack of sex-education. No wonder that H.G. Wells admired it (although one suspects that H.G. Wells would have enjoyed any book that featured teenage girls in an atmosphere of hothouse sexuality...). Despite being very political, it's always light and often very funny in tone, and it even has something very like an optimistic ending. If you think about other campaigning novels about education set about the same time - Young Torless and The child Manuela were the two that sprang to my mind, for instance - that's quite something.

    Book preview

    The Getting of Wisdom - Henry Handel Richardson

    y1^book_preview_excerpt.html\ێGr"@`3^M $(fM9kAXCvWvwi*Kuf?_/9'"gF0`kuɌMS~x7|(nxDZjE?WCM=?ƶC[ƺ\펡/{MX E6S_x4D>&F{1m*viYY>c_*Cq:qH>/i*pݹMq#( >^b¢mAc웁K? x_b{]=̏ exIjVN!?⺍,j㋧ey3Կ B߇O˄7O[7|u ؉CSϺ_5?T=DGEq7&g{?އ0=0C7_O?wŻ޾۷o?ۛڟo|CTN;])ŏWojHR_}#I7y{W1_GᩫWX|wO?w߿on?~~tfHziՅ^fa1x`,œy3xdq)>^):y7Nا/vǪ.':~}nZЇaoLMl.v,S=wՎIrø揿*PݱxXaxTb4V.u(kS^tPΡc@X m1Gu=!$<~}gKHQcq 82ZDpWGhBĒ6 ׈E]/x) rN0dX=رRI/}Du.~s>Ri.ل΂mp-=B@P=d6!W U}rieՏg ']/fsj>MCCza }>M&`pv=qɦ|ڵI~9Npg4~ >W*Bl-> #rԦ8|u} ߽wH0Nɍowǵ3bMXW[%-nN{ lo 1r^o Mމ5&ODŽ ؃v09|vb 'ēogy0zdYTr Y޸/`\)ɐf0=>AlċC1zئ@ 8p:S&}Jψ^i?x{ۀC }^16N㎼=OxAO|,qcUqS{ϠH!Pl=_|)=Y8 ^x ECQ+j SWxRE}vwtYK!zY' " #!cư+"բA_yٶb5w*x`gNgЫ _Ħg-.b qgm<Q+zӟ61'SKûWBܠ-jxOZU^,IeRn'_ȋ{=&e92䵊)^@< Pa>䉦ҸShaHoĺ77N.-U;O)pXlӃ2e(~ ICo _c~o>h59 ;lCb.5z?~jiH'ԋ( \d9,BF}WKCm9tBOr)O^ EWhJ^> Jzn*02ҫP y>2'HWh#>;S'n,h4 ]Q$*Sr1!]t!R1 MEJ++gKWAV-p&%5e+-N1goB S%l%Tw,bPV:#hUKs[rtXdsZҎ8LĿY__+.[G̮r+2mXd8TùCdo/cJckLHc`NA}yb{eS xM_:$>|wLfz,/Ў'!U2ԆhhIcA!#2s(om, Td#p$7橎/!;2yP8xM%g* EVPv e:\-(uXk]j@2)5O#E|;yh^T[}F0HF~&+Шk(,cBZeS#4=<8zpӗR|&b,<"U=3s/2uH3ӹ@:*to/gŌiRɹ=ᕑFfG C4,RBH&hӼZZvukWccET>B*eZ $ₐrJfVf ՞z>lU1?g"eVA."hb8^7˸59U=DN6bj叐G'wǩYԫbam/Sc:*s$'_jR '#ٿyZ7U, p[ B6KbqO2' hQf={5R@91Ka}Klhz_oD r2n͕-.jSu&x9WCkWk 13X)آPՐ.u3Z{a">4Q {BeF'WXvfLw_=X(Xux\e=VlĠ4cH;Wj$m'6,s +\fa&v@; 2,CոTzGga9v,^}la*fFbCpvd 3:LK,k ,b ;'z!p}"*XL#߱>D -*œ< X#T;69ǯ;EuiKQm{l_Z J\ ՠXVS$Sݡ5LȀ3y vѡzkVvص-*YzkJh;<1MHpCu_vLM[E {]UGqA'-#Ӷg2'Olst!|諆clӛK;a4,nUD䬼n3BdSb-BKn襊%GasOؾKҌ țlyHs[An7遹JE5#+:# y6 Yxm2slQ`;YW@]- ":r,xaSS1>J{T"V\moq47 iQ1jH΢En(xQ+| t*x ]aRU?MنJQ!?Vb'U^lUМ'3jsԸsGCz`zd!Yf׫D]vIguY-\i:W$lqkr듂[A#C_H 9ofQf-gp]aMo_{0LlmɌ4 q/b{1k'2_^T rTf?{-Wo\ yF/:& XւTEZAC2bUan$ڻoRPljό2I3: s#ct 2xjƂ)s'Tp}yH% Ab5mx2fgdGF+2^e ;N?cfaG(&1Dž0 _ց`+xs66:9.V T"izrx6&!gUjW98SkN*.(zgE䐟$Dl^4[K/ۥwK}$$~|NɄs r7@.&4kmއI8rnVmDNr̛GYA {8y*/Ӡ-gl̄sutֶT|waKKxH~>_z/m*rfm2%㲵>UŅC>Q`3[9Am5dLyr>~I6b5:QDg4 #"lRY9.Ѡ,Pɉ}jfأwsԶU-%ߩT]H,S? &ZDG|9ʆ0i3d7 Ǽ IpoDB]щ_ʟ)ȸq۴8uh'fB$F(ᕈUђVk$5#V10ǗާBɏ ,6/*{7U9eH{)qmQ&01(d0,{XPVŽ/Ȼv2f묳r7J˩<Ϯ22n ,ib)R͢vԴO}wd U\sZDv4Β`߁=tFPiնR -g4oƲf+ҦqlUZ\@G!N3@U@ TOS 2qR۞Mh^Pg)@)ʍŗ̜٦zZBj &1\h(/P"ԧg ,6^`pݐ٥Md83#r}3usON3پ’ɧ<H2lPhR8>*(xCHAg6Y8ˬ8tܾ-Vc54ȇSZtwu3,g`]γѧ =v6(ipZjup(Y?32O0揺)ly<8O˾愉NF ) 26:Ø`)s\G,鋾yjwK:q  fF?j^2ُC{wbWWg {HGt vkd,\+NҤe08zlnnwDTy08oc% Cz9IQ3 }8Lf7JD+&;-cI80z6mb?̵B.rxŤs$@Ei;ώL }\ӌS }=x}YT|<_r:VYO(g:@xχoOW+\=;>{br ݇?-ϴq?Ӏ;]#0^j^e%2 :ƟC)t>~nJdgllQT\2Щs4\6S?AK%nz{dcanXj՞nm[hG {?zEl9ᩬyks)NlP1QϟhȧjB6tP3@4EYs ۀ&5$D^Yy:qn̝3 R TέkBU)ͤ29*_wfUyL);tj|CDHjFL&h_ yȺ.|y9b1X<~Rƚ2p>h ,L[v(9x{ sd}T5U &)*}pƷ6ju6yT.RϭQSFY f|slCwM0ގQ3f_!,\޹ֱJRJиC"zcӛOlyS_YYOx99ÌP94 ڡ ߇s^ a,>0|P.h]iҬ-eMj Tpb{ߛu~$`A`Lv_OAŚy ATĐ[ĐWM88y%uuTo&X#7f!I_]OEaA?cQ,VT3<ߥ@E,Ӥ :uyrcrVZ֠+*X|S.:joPEEhT\X&If֔d~2M抅1w;?,`ċ<,8Outr9E9l؍.6aGwy"qx>uOM>:v&ʿr}5ߚe"k> oʙcu v:7%Cf?}Ou'YkW3h-Rml.)˫9棍ND/_ٚLEjt qx9@ˏ~2J 2'kFf}_] j!_Hr%@v@3$2SrE[oKD9p"]1!ŗ9jw[wC q7N*/9zC7Xbx01W"$@Oh|fQn5#krya>fgaꕔ>uވG8O۩E 'Hbt x|6m0}P遉e(4vφ 0 lɰ'eM/W7VՎڡ}&mQ'6%~-ƝۜEc9Lxj  aV[rhm17M:} bܴ2,6gCL4z5b1?=CaIOkNNN$l\rEZ+ӧY΄Y/KB)9SU[(kmf`5LhEU'eyKבqZk{U
    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1