The first full-length biography of a daring Australian woman of letters
Largely unknown during her lifetime, Lesbia Harford (1891–1927) is a major figure in Australian letters. Writing during the Great War, Harford celebrated same-sex desire with a boldness rare for her era. She melded radical politics with modernist sensibility – in both form and content, she was decades ahead of her time.
Born with a congenital heart defect that ensured early death, she lived with passion and commitment. She qualified as a lawyer when the profession was almost entirely closed to women and debated Robert Menzies about the war. After abandoning university to work in a clothing factory, she became a union leader and joined the Industrial Workers of the World. She moved among significant literary and political figures – Katharine Susannah Prichard, Vance and Nettie Palmer, John Curtin, John Cain – and with her husband, painter Pat Harford, influenced post-impressionist art in Australia.
Harford’s deeply personal writing often requires biographical context. Yet despite growing interest in her work, no definitive account of her life exists. Award-winning writer Jeff Sparrow draws on years of archival research and brings to light new information about Lesbia’s work, life and romantic relationships. He sets Harford’s writing and life against the Great War and the tumultuous events that created modern Australia, showing how and why one of Australia’s best artists is still relevant a century after her death – and what her story has to show us about art, politics and the value of hope amid a time of global upheaval.
