The Getting of Wisdom

When Laura Rambotham arrives at an exclusive Melbourne girls' school from her country home, she is ridiculed by the other pupils for her differences—her name, her unusual clothes, and especially for her 'unpardonable sin': her exceptional musical ability. Laura endures ostracism and misery as she attempts to make herself socially acceptable to her peers, learning much about the world and its inhabitants along the way. Henry Handel Richardson was the pen name of Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson, born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1870. Her first novel, Maurice Guest, was published in 1908, and her second, The Getting of Wisdom, published in 1910, was described by H. G. Wells as the best school story he knew.