Abstract
Set in Sydney in 1913 but not published until 1933, Among the Reeds is the sole novel written by Alice Muskett, a woman better known as a painter in the period of women’s emancipation in Australia. It was published under the pen-name “Jane Laker”, and takes the form of Jane’s journal, over the period of a year. This chapter reads the novel as a perceptive and optimistic account of the key moment of feminist and modernist transition – until the shadow of the Great War falls across that sunlit Sydney world. This historically significant novel has long been out of print and the chapter explores the way it dramatises women’s conflicts over marriage and career.
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Notes
- 1.
Susan Magarey, Passions of the First Wave Feminists (Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2001), 41–48.
- 2.
‘The romance of experience’ in Susan Sheridan, Along the Faultlines: Sex, Race and Nation in Australian Women’s Writing, 1880s–1930s (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1995), 51–68.
- 3.
Philip Muskett was a most interesting man: he published books on infant and child health, and a comprehensive Illustrated Australian Medical Guide, as well as a book called The Art of Living in Australia, where he advocated radical changes in diet — too much meat, bread and tea (not to mention tobacco) should be replaced by fruit, vegetables, fish, coffee and Australian wine. He was a pioneer sex educator, too, issuing an illustrated pamphlet on women’s reproductive health. As well as all this, he was active in debating societies, and followed the family tradition in being a bibliophile. See Stephen Garton and Beverley Kingston, “Muskett, Philip Edward (1857–1909)”, in Australian Dictionary of Biography (Canberra 2005), http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/muskett-philip-edward-13123/text23747, accessed online January 25, 2015.
- 4.
Quoted in Judith Allen, Rose Scott (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1994), 132.
- 5.
Magarey, Passions of the First Wave Feminists, 60–63.
- 6.
Julian Ashton was a great promoter of Australian art. As a trustee of the National Art Gallery of New South Wales he was responsible for its enlightened patronage of local artists. He was behind the establishment in 1911 of the Fine Arts Society’s gallery, the first to deal solely in Australian art. He also lectured and wrote frequently, especially for Art in Australia. See Katherine Harper, “Ashton, Julian Howard (1877–1964)”, in Australian Dictionary of Biography (Canberra, 1979), http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/ashton-julian-howard-5072/text8459, accessed online January 25, 2015.
- 7.
Angela Philp, “From Wallflowers to Tall Poppies: The Sydney Society of Women Painters, 1910–1934”, in Wallflowers and Witches: Women and Culture in Australia 1910–1945, edited by Maryanne Dever (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1994), 1–12.
- 8.
Suzanne Edgar and Dorothy Green, “Muskett, Alice Jane (1869–1936)”, Australian Dictionary of Biography (Canberra, 1986), http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/muskett-alice-jane-7717/text13517, accessed online January 25, 2015. Also “Muskett, Alice Jane” in Heritage: The National Women’s Art Book, edited by Joan Kerr (Sydney: G+B Arts International, 1995), 413.
- 9.
Jane Laker, Among the Reeds (London and Melbourne: Cassell, 1933).
- 10.
Elton actually wrote that the “cool intimate veracity” of women depicting their own sex is “salutary” but (he implied regret) it “omits so much of the essence of women as men see them”: A Survey of English Literature 1730–1880 6 v (London: E Arnold, 1912–1928), v 1, 174.
- 11.
Laker, Among the Reeds, 12.
- 12.
Laker, ibid, 91.
- 13.
Laker, ibid, 47.
- 14.
Laker, ibid, 43.
- 15.
Laker, ibid, 198.
- 16.
Laker, ibid, 36–37.
- 17.
Laker, ibid, 194.
- 18.
Laker, ibid, 151.
- 19.
Laker, ibid, 57.
- 20.
Laker, ibid, 202–203.
- 21.
Laker, ibid, 209.
- 22.
Laker, ibid, 15.
- 23.
Laker, ibid, 16.
- 24.
Laker, ibid, 249.
- 25.
Laker, ibid, 253.
- 26.
See Sally Ledger, The New Woman: Fiction and Feminism at the fin de siecle (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1997).
- 27.
Laker, Among the Reeds, 221.
- 28.
Laker, ibid, 77.
- 29.
Laker, ibid, 93.
- 30.
Laker, ibid, 250.
- 31.
Laker, ibid, 270.
- 32.
The phrase is from W.B. Yeats’ “Easter 1916”. In the Introduction to The Europeans in Australia, volume 3 (Sydney: Oxford University Press, 2014) historian Alan Atkinson writes that the Great War made a deeper impression on Australians than anything else, that the years before 1914 were “another world”.
- 33.
E. Morris Miller, Australian Literature from its beginnings to 1935 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press in association with Oxford University Press, 1940),790. Presumably because of this, it is listed in the AustLit database as being about “artists” “women” and “personal adornment”: www.austlit.edu.au accessed online January 25, 2015.
- 34.
Alexandra Joel, Parade: The Story of Fashion in Australia (Sydney: Harper Collins, 1998).
- 35.
Laker, Among the Reeds, 242.
- 36.
Contemporary reviews can be accessed via the Trove collection of digitised newspapers: http://trove.nla.gov.au.
Bibliography
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Dever, Maryanne, ed. Wallflowers and Witches: Women and Culture in Australia 1910-1945. St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1994.
Edgar, Suzanne and Dorothy Green, “Muskett, Alice Jane (1869–1936)”, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/muskett-alice-jane-7717/text13517, published first in hardcopy 1986, accessed online January 25, 2015.
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Harper, Katherine. ‘Ashton, Julian Howard (1877–1964)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/ashton-julian-howard-5072/text8459, published first in hardcopy 1979, accessed online January 25, 2015.
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Laker, Jane [Alice Muskett]. Among the Reeds. London: Cassell, 1933.
Ledger, Sally. The New Woman: Fiction and Feminism at the fin de siecle. Manchester University Press 1997.
Magarey, Susan. Passions of the First Wave Feminists. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2001.
Miller, E. Morris. Australian Literature from its Beginnings to 1935. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1940.
Richardson, Henry Handel. The Getting of Wisdom. London: William Heinemann, 1910.
Sheridan, Susan. Along the Faultlines: Sex, Race and Nation in Australian Women’s Writing, 1880s—1930s. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1995.
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Sheridan, S. (2017). Among the Reeds: A Lost Novel of Women’s Emancipation. In: Das, D., Dasgupta, S. (eds) Claiming Space for Australian Women’s Writing. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50400-1_3
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