AustLit

'Peter Roennfeldt’s study of the musician Henrietta Willmore might have been called The Fortunes of Henrietta Percival because, like Henry Handel Richardson’s trilogy, The Fortunes of Richard Mahony, it is a migrant story. Henrietta Percival came to Brisbane in 1864 as the wife of Alfred Mallalieu and, as their family grew, Henrietta established herself as a teacher and the ‘most accomplished female pianist and organist to have resided in colonial Brisbane’ (2015: vi). While the physician Mahony initially prospers in Australia, but ultimately succumbs to madness, Henrietta (who reinvents herself as Madame Mallalieu) is more resilient. She overcomes personal sorrow following the death of her daughter, survives the disappearance of two husbands and leaves an important cultural legacy.' (Introduction)