Catherine Martin--novelist, poet, and essayist--was acclaimed by English and Australian critics in her day for her evocation of Australian landscapes and for her capacity for both humorous and acerbic comment, as well as for the powerful psychological and spiritual dramas that characterize her two major novels. She was accorded an entry in the British biographical dictionary Men and Women of the Time in 1899, and in 1910 the Australian critic, author, and political activist Catherine Helen Spence stated the view, in her Autobiography, that Martin was Australia's only novelist of genius. After a period of critical neglect during much of the twentieth century, more-recent critical reevaluation both of Martin's novels and of her poetry have established her as one of the most important Australian women writers of the nineteenth century.

Martin was born Catherine Edith Macauley Mackay at Bernisdale on the Isle of Skye, Scotland, probably in 1847. She was the...