Ethel Turner

Cazneaux's portrait of Ethel Turner posing in the window of her study at her Mosman home, ‘Avenel’, 1928

Ethel Turner (24 January 1872 – 8 April 1958) was an English-born Australian young adult novelist and children's writer. She is best known for her first novel, Seven Little Australians. She also nurtured budding writers through her work as Dame Durden for the Illustrated Sydney News.

Quotes

Seven Little Australians (1894)

• If you imagine you are going to read of model children, with perhaps a naughtily inclined one to point a moral, you had better lay down the book immediately and betake yourself to "Sandford and Merton" or similar standard juvenile works. Not one of the seven is really good, for the very excellent reason that Australian children never are.
  • Chapter I