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| rosa_praed [2021/03/18 11:41] – judith | rosa_praed [2023/09/06 12:55] – judith |
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| ====== Rosa Caroline Praed, nee M-P ====== | ====== Rosa Caroline Praed, nee M-P ====== |
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| Rosa (or Rosie as she was called by her family) as a young adult.((__ BROKEN-LINK:https://static1.squarespace.com/static/58854084197aea49bd548fc2/t/5966d2533e00bed2dc69bcb5/1499910753362/?format=500w)) LINK-BROKEN __ {{:young_rosa_cropped.jpg?200|}}\\ | Rosa (or Rosie as she was called by her family) as a young adult.{{:young_rosa_cropped.jpg?200|}}\\ |
| Rosa in 1888.((Provenance: Jill Fleming)) {{:rosa_1888.jpg?200|}}\\ | Rosa in 1888.((Provenance: Jill Fleming)) {{:rosa_1888.jpg?200|}}\\ |
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| The State Library of NSW has this portrait of Rosa Praed painted by Emily Praed in 1884; it may be a copy of one painted by J.M. Jopling that year. In 2019, it is in the State Library's portrait gallery on open access: {{:c34025_0001_c_rosaportrait_in_ml.jpg?300|}}\\ | The State Library of NSW has this portrait of Rosa Praed painted by Emily Praed in 1884; it may be a copy of one painted by J.M. Jopling that year. At time of writing (2023), it is in the Library's portrait gallery on open access: {{:c34025_0001_c_rosaportrait_in_ml.jpg?300|}}\\ |
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| The themes of Rosa's writings were confronting for her contemporaries: 'the young colonial woman's encounter with metropolitan political and literary culture, the 'tragedies of the sexes', the horrors of frontier conflict, and the exploration of psychic and spiritual life.'((Kay Ferres, ‘”I must dree my weird”: A colonial Correspondence’, Hecate, 31:2, 2005, p.75)) Especially in the 1890s, Rosa was accused of promoting immorality through her more realistic novels, and at least one play, featuring domestic conflict and the plight of women, brought up to be 'innocent' (Rosa would say 'ignorant') and thrust into marriages they had little hope of escaping. These accusations would have been even more strident if her publishers hadn't insisted on bowdlerising her work. Patricia Clarke points out that Australian critics were particularly critical of Rosa's writings as too risque.((Patricia Clarke, 'Rosa Praed's Irish Connections', //The Australian Journal of Irish Studies//, vol. 1, 2001, p.121.))\\ | The themes of Rosa's writings were confronting for her contemporaries: 'the young colonial woman's encounter with metropolitan political and literary culture, the 'tragedies of the sexes', the horrors of frontier conflict, and the exploration of psychic and spiritual life.'((Kay Ferres, ‘”I must dree my weird”: A colonial Correspondence’, Hecate, 31:2, 2005, p.75)) Especially in the 1890s, Rosa was accused of promoting immorality through her more realistic novels, and at least one play, featuring domestic conflict and the plight of women, brought up to be 'innocent' (Rosa would say 'ignorant') and thrust into marriages they had little hope of escaping. These accusations would have been even more strident if her publishers hadn't insisted on bowdlerising her work. Patricia Clarke points out that Australian critics were particularly critical of Rosa's writings as too risque.((Patricia Clarke, 'Rosa Praed's Irish Connections', //The Australian Journal of Irish Studies//, vol. 1, 2001, p.121.))\\ |
| {{:campbell_praed_prob.jpg?200|}} | {{:campbell_praed_prob.jpg?200|}} |
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| Rosa and Campbell Praed illustrate the popular saying about marrying in haste and repenting in leisure. They had four children, after which they they lived together, but considered the marriage over. Nevertheless, Praed encouraged and supported Rosa with her career as a writer. She only left him in c.1899-1900, a year before his death, to live with spiritualist Nancy Harward. Rosa believed she and Nancy were re-incarnated 'twin souls', destined to be together in succeeding lives: a more sceptical modern view is that Nancy's memories of 'past lives' derived from schizophrenia. Despite her spiritualist belief, and perhaps influenced by Justin McCarthy, in 1891 Rosa formally converted to Catholicism. She later changed her mind. Before her death in 1935 she drew up a codicil to her will asking to be buried with Protestant rites in All Souls Kensal Green Cemetery, London, sharing the grave of her companion for so many years, Nancy Harward.((Roderick, //In Mortal Bondage//, pp.202-03; Patricia Clarke, 'Rosa Praed's Irish Connections', //The Australian Journal of Irish Studies//, vol. 1, 2001, p.122.)) | Rosa and Campbell Praed illustrate the popular saying about marrying in haste and repenting in leisure. They had four children, after which they they lived together, but considered the marriage over. Nevertheless, Praed encouraged and supported Rosa with her career as a writer. She only left him in c.1899-1900, a year before his death, to live with spiritualist Nancy Harward. Rosa believed she and Nancy were re-incarnated 'twin souls', destined to be together in succeeding lives: a more sceptical modern view is that Nancy's memories of 'past lives' derived from schizophrenia. Despite her spiritualist belief, and perhaps influenced by Justin McCarthy, in 1891 Rosa formally converted to Catholicism. She later changed her mind. Before her death in 1935 she drew up a codicil to her will asking to be buried with Protestant rites in All Souls Kensal Green Cemetery, London, sharing the grave of her companion for so many years, Nancy Harward.((Roderick, //In Mortal Bondage//, pp.202-03; Patricia Clarke, 'Rosa Praed's Irish Connections', //The Australian Journal of Irish Studies//, vol. 1, 2001, p.122.)) \\ |
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| | For more photographs of Rosa and her family, see the website of the State Library of Queensland [[https://onesearch.slq.qld.gov.au/discovery/search?query=any,contains,Rosa%20Praed&tab=All&search_scope=Everything&vid=61SLQ_INST:SLQ&lang=en&offset=0example.com|search for Rosa Praed]] |
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