AustLit

The older sister of Ethel Turner (q.v.), Lilian Turner married F. Lindsay Thompson of Sydney in 1898. She began her writing career editing the schoolgirls' magazines, Iris and Parthenon with Ethel. Turner authored twenty-two books for the young, mostly for the teenage reader. She also wrote romance novels for older girls. Brenda Niall (q.v.), in her entry for the Australian Dictionary of Biography about Ethel's life, decribes Lilian Turner's novels as the 'flapper' novels: stories of love and ambition written for schoolgirls and young women.

Turner was interested in women's rights and this theme appeared in her novels that explore social attitudes towards men and women, gender stereotyping, and the rejection of domestic life. Her career was always eclipsed by that of her sister. According to Kerry White's PhD thesis, 'Founded on Compromise: Australian Girls' Family Stories 1894-1982' (1985), which covers both sisters' careers, Ethel mediated with the publisher on Lilian's behalf. White also points out Turner's efforts in offering an Australian version of the American title, Little Women, in her novel, Paradise and the Perrys (1908) in which 'practicality' was presented as the essential characteristic of the Australian girl.