Henry Handel Richardson's The Fortunes of Richard Mahony (in three volumes — 1917, 1925, 1929) is a far too-oft forgotten classic of early Australian literature...
'That was the syllabus' says the young man late of the HSC
Mister if you had your time again Would you break or would you bend?
He meets her in August, that first time at least, outside an abandoned church on Bourke Street, her wiry body leant back to the wet brick wall...
