Elizabeth and Elizabeth
Elizabeth and Elizabeth is bestselling Australian journalist and non-fiction writer, Sue Williams’ first historical novel, based on the true story of two colonial women. Set in the early decades of the 19th century, when the frontier prison colony of New South Wales was a hotbed of political and personal agendas, Williams explores the unlikely friendship of two very different, pioneering wives called Elizabeth.
As the naïve, idealistic wife of the newly arrived Governor, Elizabeth Macquarie is ill-prepared for the harsh reality of colonial life. Arriving with an unusual personal agenda of social and architectural reform, she is overwhelmed by the heat, dust and primitive conditions that confront her in 1809 Sydney.
She latches onto an unlikely confidante, the wife of sheep farmer, John Macarthur. While John is in England attempting to clear his name of serious anti-establishment criminal charges, Elizabeth Macarthur is proving herself to be a more than capable manager, equally comfortable in the harsh outback with a rifle in her hand, as she is in the genteel ballrooms of colonial society.
Williams skillfully portrays the two women’s growing relationship against the complex backdrop of their place and times, a white man’s world of corruption, greed and cruelty. Elizabeth and Elizabeth is a fascinating look at how these two remarkable women navigated themselves through difficulties and heartbreaks to leave a legacy felt nearly two hundred years later.
