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The House of Blue Glass
Brief Description
Acclaimed historian Alan Atkinson author of the award-winning Elizabeth and John: The Macarthurs of Elizabeth Farm pieces together the life of Penelope Lucas and the pivotal role she played in building the Macarthur empire. While she is known as the family governess, Atkinson reveals that Penelope...
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The House of Blue Glass
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See moreAcclaimed historian Alan Atkinson pieces together the life of Penelope Lucas, the first professionally qualified woman to emigrate from Europe to Australia.
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Description
Acclaimed historian Alan Atkinson author of the award-winning Elizabeth and John: The Macarthurs of Elizabeth Farm pieces together the life of Penelope Lucas and the pivotal role she played in building the Macarthur empire. While she is known as the family governess, Atkinson reveals that Penelope was primarily an accountant whose bookkeeping work made an important difference to the Macarthurs' success.
Penelope Lucas came to Australia in 1805, in her thirties, unmarried she was the first well-educated woman to travel independently from Europe to Australia and looking forward to living on inherited income. While Elizabeth Macarthur was unsurprisingly upset when her husband, John, arrived back from three years in England with a woman she had never heard of, Penelope went on to live with the Macarthurs for over thirty years and became close friends with Elizabeth.
In this revelatory work, Atkinson brings together fifty years of scholarship as he explores the gender dynamics of the Macarthur household and the life of a single woman of means in Georgian England and early colonial Sydney.
'A prodigious feat of historical imagination.' Matthew Allen
'Exquisitely written and meticulously researched.' Alecia Simmonds
'As delicately observational as it is learned...Atkinson writes with the lightest touch.' Alison Bashford
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9781761170379
Publisher: NewSouth Publishing
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 01 March 2026
Country: Australia
Imprint: NewSouth Publishing
Audience: Professional and scholarly
DIMENSIONS
Width: 153.0mm
Height: 234.0mm
Weight: 250g
Pages: 382
About the Author
Alan Atkinson has been writing Australian history since the 1970s, and he has a lifelong interest in family circumstances and relationships. He has written or edited a dozen books, including TheEuropeans in Australia, in three volumes, the third of which won the Victorian Prize for Literature, and Elizabeth and John, which won the NSW Premier's Award for Australian history. He is an honorary professor and Doctor of Letters with the University of Sydney.
Also by Alan Atkinson
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Elizabeth and John
Winner, 2023 Ernest Scott Prize Winner, 2023 NSW Premier's History Awards, Australian History Prize Shortlisted, 2023 Prime Minister's Literary Awards, Australian History Prize A landmark and revealing joint biography of Elizabeth and John Macarthur, from one of Australia's most respected historians. Elizabeth and John Macarthur were the first married couple to travel voluntarily from Europe to Australia, arriving in 1790,...Paperback$10000Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 2-3 weeks -
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'It is the duty of historians to be, wherever they can, accurate, precise, humane, imaginative - using moral imagination above all and even-handed.' - Alan Atkinson The second of three volumes of the landmark, award-winning series The Europeans in Australia gives an account of early settlement by Britain. It tells of the political and intellectual origins of this extraordinary undertaking...Paperback$12300Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 2-3 weeks -
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