AustLit

The daughter of Sir William Manning, the famous lawyer and politician, Emily Matilda Manning grew up in Sydney. After her private school education she attended the University of Sydney and was encouraged to take an interest in literature.

When Manning was about nineteen, her name was romantically linked with David Scott Mitchell (q.v.), whose book collection later formed the basis of the Mitchell Library in Sydney. During 1864 some light-hearted poems were exchanged between the two. Manning soon left Australia for London where her connections permitted her to move in literary circles and she was able to meet Tennyson, Browning, Huxley and George Elliot. She commenced her journalistic career by writing for periodicals including Monthly Packet of Evening Readings and Golden Hours.

Manning returned to Sydney at the beginning of the 1870s to become one of the first regular women contributors to the newspapers and periodicals. She wrote articles for the Australian Town and Country Journal, Sydney Morning Herald and Sydney Mail either anonymously or under the pen-name 'Australie'.

In 1873 Manning married Henry L. Heron, a Sydney solicitor. She combined the roles of wife and mother with writing articles for magazines and newspapers and was also highly regarded as a literary critic. Her prose and verse portrayed empathy for her fellow human beings. During 1888 and 1889 she became the principal female journalist on the Herald's Women's column and for the year before her death she was associate editor of the Illustrated Sydney Herald.

Emily Manning died in August 1890 in Sydney, at the age of 45.