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Praed, Rosa Caroline (1851-1935)
Australian novelist
Born near Brisbane, Australia, she moved to England in 1876 and published more than forty works of fiction between 1880 and 1916 as Mrs Campbell Praed. Her recurrent plot motifs include that of the naive colonial woman seduced, or almost seduced, by the suave though duplicitous Englishman. This pattern symbolizes a 'new world/old world' relationship like that in Henry James's novels. Praed's Australian protagonists are culturally unsure, feeling an emptiness in their existence that they look longingly to England to satisfy. A character in Miss Jacobsen's Chance (1886) describes 'colonial' as a synonym for 'second rate', much in the way that Rolf Boldrewood says...