Review of Unbridling the Tongues of Women. A Biography of Catherine Helen Spence, by Susan Magarey

Abstract

Susan Magarey has opted for Spence as woman first, then social reformer. Her writing is accepted as 'the line of least resistance*, Spence's comment as an old woman on why she began writing her first novel at the age of nineteen while employed as a governess. Her career as a novelist is covered summarily in the second chapter, though there is a skilled and persistent journalist lurking behind the social reformer. Other chapters detail her work in children's welfare, education, women's rights, as a political reformer, preacher and theologian. As a survey of the existing diverse and extensive literature in its area, each chapter has its particular value and use, and this may indeed be the most efficient way of approaching a complex and multi-faceted career, though not all structural problems have been resolved.