Mr. Hogarth's Will

Mr Hogarth leaves his fortune to a nephew nobody knew existed, and his two nieces — raised as heiresses and educated like men — are left with nothing and must earn. One goes to Australia. Spence emigrated from Scotland to South Australia at fourteen and became the colony's conscience: its first woman novelist, its first female political candidate, and a lifelong campaigner for proportional representation. Fifty-eight plates spanning 1746 to 1918, from Munch's birch trunks to portraits of Victorian churchmen and colonial figures, echo the novel's long reach across the century in which its heroines make their own way.