A Mortal Flame – Marie Bjelke Petersen, Australian Romance Writer 1874–1969 | Alison Alexander | 1994 [USED – SC – Out of Print]

A biography of Marie Bjelke Petersen — one of Australia's most popular novelists of the early 20th century, now largely forgotten despite having sold hundreds of thousands of books in her time.

Marie Bjelke Petersen was born in Denmark but grew up in Tasmania, and her novels drew heavily on the Tasmanian landscape — particularly the remote west coast mining country around Zeehan, Rosebery and Queenstown. Her most famous work, Jewelled Nights, was adapted into a silent film in 1925, shot partly on location in Tasmania's west and starring Louise Lovely and Gordon Collingridge. The film is one of the earliest feature films made in Tasmania and survives in restored form.

Alexander's biography traces Bjelke Petersen's life from her Tasmanian childhood through her long writing career and her deeply held Christian Science faith, which shaped both her life and her writing. At 276 pages with an index it is a thorough account of a writer whose popularity in her day was substantial but whose reputation has not endured.

Out of print since publication.

BOOK DETAILS

Softcover.

276 pages, indexed.

Published 1994 by Blubber Head Press. Out of print.

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