Today’s birthday girl is Henry Handel Richardson (don’t you love a male nom-de-plume?) known to her family as Ethel Robertson.

Born 3rd January 1870 HH wrote the lovely and semi-autobiographical coming of age novel The Getting of Wisdom about Laura, a young Australian girl sent away to school where she finds it hard to fit in until she develops a monumental and hopeless crush  for an older girl.

It is extremely funny but honest and kind about Laura’s naive and furious jealousies. So HH gets an invitation to the fantasy tea party, although as it’s a fantasy, it’s Laura I really want to turn up, perhaps with her beloved Evvy in tow.