| Louisa | |
| Author: | Brian Matthews |
| Country: | Australia |
| Language: | English |
| Genre: | Biography |
| Publisher: | University of Queensland Press |
| Release Date: | 1987 |
| Media Type: | |
| Pages: | 421 pp. |
| Isbn: | 0869140388 |
| Preceded By: | Romantics and Mavericks: The Australian Short Story |
| Followed By: | Quickening and Other Stories |
Louisa (1987) is a biography of Louisa Lawson by Australian writer Brian Matthews. It was originally published by University of Queensland Press in Australia in 1987.[1]
Writing in The Canberra Times critic Peter Pierce noted: "The gaps in the biographical record of our writers are gradually being filled. Recently we have had Lawson's Archibald, Munro's Stephensen, Kinnane's Johnston. In progress are biographies of Gilmore, Furphy, Boyd and Stead. But following the audacious experiment of Louisa and its brilliant success (even as, and because Matthews admits not to have resolved all the problems of an alternative text), the game will never be the same again." And he concluded "...readers of Louisa are compelled to recognise 'a great Australian woman whose face has been in shadow too long'. Those readers will encounter a book that will radically affect literary scholarship in Australia. At the same time it is not only an outstanding biography, but one of the finest stories yet told here."[2]
After its original publication in 1987 in Australia by publisher University of Queensland Press[3] the biography was later republished as follows: