The Fortunes of Richard Mahony : Text Classics

He had never got within measurable distance of what he called life, at all…deep down in him, he knew, was an enormous residue of vitality…It was like a buried treasure, jealously kept for the event of his one day catching up with life: not the bare scramble for a living that here went by that name, but Life with a capital L.

Richard Mahony is a restless man. Ballarat, England, Melbourne, Europe, the bush: elsewhere is always better. Searching for a place, a meaning, a life, Mahony and his wife Mary journey from wealth to poverty, order to chaos, sanity to the asylum. The Fortunes of Richard Mahony is a towering novel.

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In 2012, Text is sponsoring a Henry Handel Richardson writing competition for school students. The competition is open to students in Years 10 – 12 (or overseas equivalent), with prizes awarded to original pieces of writing in any genre, that show some link to Henry Handel Richardson and/or her work. Entries close on 31 August, 2012 and will be judged by Helen Garner. There is an adults writing prize too. For more details, visit the Henry Handel Richardson society webpage.

Praise for The Fortunes of Richard Mahony:

‘More than any other novel in our literature, more than Voss, The Fortunes of Richard Mahony deserves the accolade of the Great Australian Novel… it is a mighty and moving work, this bursting at the seams anti-epic to the muse of a vanity which sees every golden bowl broken and every silver cord loosed.’

Peter Craven