Character References

Abstract

Maggie Heffernan, the subject of my novel in progress, may no longer be a household name but the basic facts of her life and crime are surprisingly easy to come by. Her desperate tale is frequently referred to in journal articles and histories dealing with 19th-century Australian women; there is even an honours thesis that devotes an entire chapter to Maggie's story in its analysis of "reproductive crime". Contemporary accounts of the crime are easy to find, too: blurry microfilm facsimiles of century-old newspaper articles detail Maggie's arrest, her trial, the public outcry, the commutation of her death sentence, her eventual release. There's enough information in these somewhat matter-of-fact accounts to whet my imagination, to provide inspiration and motivation. Sufficient information, too, to send me off on a search for the world Maggie inhabited. I'm not even familiar with 20th-century Melbourne, but somehow I need to get a feel for the fin-de-siecle metropolis. I read contemporary writings (novels, diaries, treatises) as well as 20th-century interpretations. I become familiar with bewilderingly disparate elements of 19th-century Australian social history: the conditions of the poor, of the affluent; the day-to-day duties of a young domestic servant; the women's suffrage movement; female immigration; public policy; definitions of insanity; obstetrics and gynaecology; maternal refuges; prison conditions. The list of things I need to know, to find out, is always increasing, seemingly inexhaustible, ultimately exhausting. But finally, finally, I've enough to construct a framework, a background, to Maggie's tale. But that's not quite enough to get me writing.