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Lindsey Speculation and imagination in biography
TEXT Special Issue 50, Life Writing in Troubled Times
eds Kate Douglas, Donna Lee Brien and Kylie Cardell, October 2018
1
University of Technology, Sydney
Kiera Lindsey
‘Deliberate freedom’: using speculation and imagination in historical biography
Abstract:
In this article, I explore the challenges and opportunities associated with using
‘informed imagination’ to write a speculative biography of an historical figure. In the
process, I problematize the notion of the archival gap, which has been recently
romanced by numerous writers, including myself. By citing archival gaps as a
justification for creative license, we neglect the fact that all archives are inherently
idiosyncratic in ways that invite, perhaps even demand, the use of both speculation and
imagination. Here, I make a case for what I am calling the archival overlap. A careful
examination of the existing sources, however sparse or abundant, is likely to reveal
reoccurring clues that can be used to shape how we image and construct our subjects.
Before we consider the gaps we should tend to these overlaps, I argue, using a current
work-in-progress case study of the colonial artist Adelaide Ironside to explore how
speculation and imagination are intrinsic to these stages of the biographical process.
Biographical note:
Dr Kiera Lindsey was awarded an ARC DECRA in 2017 for a project entitled
‘Speculative biography, historical craft and the case of Adelaide Ironside’. She is based
in the Australian Centre for Public History at the University of Technology Sydney
(UTS). Kiera published her first speculative biography, The Convict’s Daughter with
Allen & Unwin in 2016 and is a regular history presenter on ABC’s Radio National.
kiera.lindsey@uts.edu.au
Keywords:
Creative writing – speculative biography – Ironside, Adelaide – historical craft –
informed imagination – archival gaps and overlaps
Lindsey Speculation and imagination in biography
TEXT Special Issue 50, Life Writing in Troubled Times
eds Kate Douglas, Donna Lee Brien and Kylie Cardell, October 2018
2
Introduction
I am hunting the indexes and archives, sketchbooks and newspapers. As I push
through the miscellanea, clutching onto every clue I find within and between the lines,
I sense another equally elusive presence: the biographer’s shadow. Pursuing my
subject through the sources I sense this presence urging me towards the voice I need
to write her story. The two processes are inextricably entwined. Just as form follows
function, my voice is intimately connected to, and must, therefore, also reflect my
subject and her sources. Which is why, even in the depth of my research, I sense that
the success of this project depends upon these elements not only converging but also
emerging into the light together.
It is not only a question of who and what, but also how and when. How do we know
when we are ready to shift our focus from hunting and gathering, analysis and
interpretation, to structuring and writing? As the historian Susan Ware observes, even
though much has been written about biography, there has been little discussion of ‘the
choices and challenges’ biographers make while crafting a life story into a narrative
(2010: 425) And until the first decades of the twenty-first century there has been even
less exploration of these methodological issues from an historical perspective.1 There
is, however, Leon Edel insists, a real art to writing a biography, something that may,
at times, appear even a little mystical (1978: 3). And yet, because we are dealing with
facts, there are also methodological concerns that require careful consideration,
particularly when it comes to reconstituting a historical subject from archival sources.
In this article, I explore the challenges and opportunities associated with using
‘informed imagination’ to write a speculative biography of an historical figure. In the
process, I hope to problematize the notion of the archival gap, which has been
recently romanced by numerous writers, including myself.2 By citing archival gaps as
a justification for creative license, we neglect the fact that all archives are inherently
idiosyncratic in ways that invite, even demand, the use of speculation and
imagination. In the following pages, I make a case for what I am calling the archival
overlap. A careful examination of the existing sources, however sparse or abundant, is
likely to reveal reoccurring clues that can be used to shape how we image and
construct our subjects. Before we consider the gaps we should tend to these overlaps,
I argue, using a current work-in-progress case study to explore how speculation and
imagination are intrinsic to these stages of the biographical process and not, therefore,
something that needs to be justified as a solution to the challenge of an apparent
archival gap.
The notion of ‘informed imagination’ was first coined by historian, Natalie Zemon
Davis to describe her approach in her contentious award winning book, The Return of
Martin Guerre (1983, see also Zemon Davis 1988, 1992). Since then, the term has
been used by writers such as Drusilla Modjeska (2015) and Hilary Mantel (2017) to
describe – in short hand – the techniques they use to construct narratives from
challenging sources. Such techniques typically involve drawing upon contextual
knowledge to speculate about what happened and why. In this article, I am interested
in how we practice both speculation and imagination while researching historical
subjects. Thus, the relatively recent variant of biography known as speculative
Lindsey Speculation and imagination in biography
TEXT Special Issue 50, Life Writing in Troubled Times
eds Kate Douglas, Donna Lee Brien and Kylie Cardell, October 2018
3
biography is also relevant to this discussion, precisely because it offers scope for
experimentation and significant authorial invention.3 For those, such as myself, who
are interested in reconstituting less well-known historical figures into biographical
subjects, both informed imagination and speculative biography offer promising new
approaches and possibilities.4
Previous discussions about speculation and imagination have often focused upon the
creative challenges associated with archival gaps, however, as the historian Carolyn
Steedman observes, it is, in fact, ‘the archive that grant liberties’ or ‘forbid the saying
of certain things’ (2002: xi). They are like stepping stones upon which we leap from
one firm fact to the next, advancing our understanding of our subject, while also
progressing the plot. But, as Mantel reminds us, while ‘facts are strong’, they are not
always ‘stable’ (2017). There is often wobble in the steppingstone, a need to question,
double check, contextualize, note the possibilities before making a quick leap to
something more reliable. And as we work with these sources, we are constantly
filtering through the possibilities, speculating about the bigger picture, making
decisions and conjuring possibilities that might encourage us to imagine what might
have happened. All the while we are also seeking meaning; how does this evidence fit
in with what I know thus far? What does it tell me about the wider world, and what, in
turn, does the wider world illuminate this new discovery? This is a process that is not
only inherently speculative but also intrinsically imaginative.
I am at the beginning of a three-year long project that involves writing a biography,
then reflecting upon these processes in ways that I hope will encourage others who are
also intent upon reconstituting historical figures into biographical subjects. Thus far, I
have conducted less than a third of my archival research and, as I describe below, my
findings are far from conclusive. Nonetheless, I have some materials, I am
familiarizing myself with various methods and theories and I also have some first
impressions about what lies before me. This discussion, then, is an opportunity to
reflect upon what I have discovered as I focus upon the archival overlaps as well as
the methods I have been employing to make sense of my subject and her sources.
The subject and her sources
My case study, Adelaide Eliza Scott Ironside, was born in Sydney in 1831 and in
1855 became the first native-born person to train overseas as an artist. Or at least, this
is how she is typically described in the few secondary sources devoted to her life
(Caine 2003, Pesman 1996, 2003, Poulton 1987, Teale 1972). Despite her
contemporary standing, this once celebrated artist has received only scanty scholarly
attention and is little known to most contemporary general readers. I hope to remedy
this by writing a biography in which Adelaide also functions as a portal into the past,
so that my reader can ‘see through the life’, as historian Alice Kessler Harris suggests,
‘into life itself’ (2009: 626). As well as learning about Aesi, I intend to weave a
uniquely female perspective into the masculine world of colonial politics and to bring
a distinctively colonial lens to the radical and romantic sensibilities that shaped much
of the world during this period, including the numerous influential people with whom
she associated.
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Deeply embedded in the colonial intellectual and artistic milieu of her age, ‘Aesi’ as
she preferred to be known, was a creature of many such enthusiasms. At the age of
fourteen, possibly inspired by Sir Walter Scott, she added Scott to her name,
abbreviating her initials, Adelaide Eliza Scott Ironside, to create a new persona. Thus,
Ada or Adi as she had previously been known, became Aesi, and signed much of her
artwork accordingly (Poulton 1987: 24). While Aesi’s contemporaries often admired
her patriotic poetry and politics, most considered her to be uniquely gifted as an artist.
After achieving some recognition at the 1855 Paris International Exhibition for a
series of Australian Wildflower water colours, Adelaide decided to ‘marry art’,
leaving the colony with the explicit intention of returning to adorn Sydney’s public
buildings with republican frescos after a self-imposed exile of ten years.
Evidence of Aesi’s adept social skills can be found in her personal network, which
reads as a veritable ‘who’s who’ of the Victorian era. Mentored by the controversial
Presbyterian Minister John Dunmore Lang during her childhood, Aesi was also
friends with the daughters of Lang’s greatest rival, William Charles Wentworth
(Wentworth Papers)5. It is also possible that Aesi was in love with Daniel Henry
Deniehy, the darling of the native-born (Poulton 1987)6. Contemporaries gossiped that
it was Deniehy’s elopement with a woman described as ‘younger and prettier’ that
compelled Aesi to leave the colonies.7 That Deniehy’s new wife was also named
Adelaide, must have added salt to the wound, if, indeed, these rumours are true.
In England Aesi enjoyed the professional attention of Dr James Clark, personal
physician to Queen Victoria and John Keats before the poet died in Italy in 1821.8 She
was also an associate of Sir Charles Eastlake at the time when he was serving as the
first Director of the National Gallery.9 The great art critic of the Victorian age, John
Ruskin, took Aesi on as one of his protégées, and their correspondence suggests she
formed an affectionate bond with both Ruskin and his young Scottish niece, Joan
Agnew.10 It Italy, where Aesi and her mother were primarily based, she mixed with a
vibrant artistic and intellectual community, including the Brownings, the sculptors
John Gibson and Harriet Hosmer, and their associates – Henry James, Nathaniel
Hawthorne, William Makepeace Thackeray to mention a few. In Rome, a seventeen-
year old Prince of Wales visited Aesi’s studio and purchased a painting (Anon 1900:
3, Lang). Despite the fact that she was an ardent advocate of Garibaldi and
Risorgimento, Pope Pius IX requested a private meeting with the colonial artist and
invited her to paint his portrait (Poulton 1987: 55). Aesi declined. Her mentor, Dr
Lang, the vociferous Anti-Catholic Presbyterian, would have been proud.
Hers was a life well lived, even if it was cut short in 1867, at the age of thirty-six,
when she died of tuberculosis in Rome. Aesi worked hard to be recognized both in
Australia and internationally. And she achieved this, as evidenced in both the
obituaries published in the British press and the fact that, in contrast to many of her
female contemporaries, Aesi left an abundant historical record. Thus far, I have found
just under 150 letters, 42 pieces of artwork, ranging from unfinished pencil sketches,
reproductions of her celebrated watercolour botanic illustrations, exquisitely finished
portraits and self-portraits in crayon and charcoal as well as the only one of three
large oil paintings to survive being stored in ‘a sort of three-sided shed’ (Poulton
1987: 111-13)11. There are also 25 poems, of which 19 were published in Sydney’s
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most radical newspaper of the period, The People’s Advocate.12 Her papers also
include a batch of calling cards, with the names of the numerous influential Victorians
who wove through her life, elegantly printed onto thick cream card.
There are also newspaper articles, which can be divided into references made about
Aesi during her life and after her death.13 The latter is most numerous and primarily
comprises obituaries written by Ruskin and other luminaries. There are also some
tantalizing descriptions of artwork since lost (See for example, Anon 1862: 5). Most
recently, I found four references to Aesi in the correspondence of Elizabeth Barrett
and Robert Browning. These are particularly intriguing for they indicate Aesi made a
‘memorable’ first impression upon Robert Browning due to her ‘enthusiasm and wild
ways’, and that she insinuated herself into their social circle by conducting what
Browning described as her ‘performances’ of ‘the celestial sphere’.14
In my first speculative biography I recreated the life of Mary Ann Gill, the daughter
of two Dublin emancipists, who was born in Sydney, six months after Aesi (Lindsey
2016a: xi). Mary Ann’s historical record clustered around a romantic scandal that
occurred in 1848 and produced both legal records and newspaper reports. While these
sources are abundant, otherwise, like many of native-born women of her class and
education, Mary Ann’s archive is sparse: there is nothing written by her; nor any
record of interior world or her appearance (Lindsey 2016a: 280–87). Thanks to an
obituary, however, I was able to sew together the broad plot line of her life in the
years following this scandal. And so, with few records to guide me from one fact to
the next, I drew upon historical context to speculate and inform my imagination in
ways that allowed me to recreate what was otherwise an unevenly recorded colonial
life. And in the process, the archival absences served, as Mantel notes regarding her
own method, as a rich ‘stimulus to creative thought’ (2017: Lecture 2)15.
In contrast, Aesi’s sources are not only more abundant than Mary Ann’s; they are also
much more subjective. Scattered across fifty years and three countries, they comprise
artwork, poetry and correspondence, many punctuated with regular smatterings of
German, French and Italian. While the majority of her records are held in private and
public archival collections, I must also hunt down references to Aesi in the records of
other well-known nineteenth-century figures, many of whom, such as Lang,
Wentworth, the Brownings and Ruskin, have their own extensive archives and
biographies.16 Although I have decided that I am not writing a literary biography, I
need to be familiar with Romantic and Victorian poetry if I am to understand Aesi’s
verse. Similarly, while I am not writing an artist’s biography, I am writing the
biography of an artist and need to understand the tools and techniques she used in a
host of different mediums such as watercolour, charcoal and crayon, oil and fresco.
A comparison of the historical record associated with these two contemporary native-
born women demonstrates how archives typically contain their own unique
methodological challenges that then shape not only what we can know about such
characters but also how we write them. Not only is ‘evidence always partial’, but, as
Mantel notes, what remains is often also rather random. ‘History is a record of what’s
left on the record … it is what’s left in the sieve when the centuries have run through
it ...’ It is, however, also ‘the best we have’ (Mantel 2017: Lecture 1). And if we are to
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write these lives we must find ways to make do. Nonetheless, this tenuous, arbitrary,
even miraculous material raises questions about posterity. Why, for example, are there
so many calling cards and so few paintings in Aesi’s record? Why so many crayon
and charcoal sketches and none of the Australian Wildflowers botanic illustrations
that first established her international reputation when she exhibited them in Paris in
1855? Aesi’s archive appears to be a snapshot of what was in her possession when she
died. We can assume that sometime after her death, her mother sorted through Aesi’s
belongings, discarding that which she deemed ill-suited to her daughter’s legacy.
Later descendants also made decisions, keeping some records, selling others to
cultural institutions, which, then, made their own assessments regarding the
significance of Aesi’s and her record.17 Now, Aesi’s archive appears highly gendered,
containing an abundance of minutiae relating to her social world, but comparatively
less evidence with which to assess that which mattered most to her, namely, her
artistic and intellectual contribution.
Finding a spine source
Keen to sculpt some order from this chaos, I begin my biographical research by
searching my subject’s historical record for what I call a ‘spine source’. While it is
unlikely that this source will be free of bias, I am looking for something that has
sufficient historical legitimacy and immediacy for me to compare it with other sources
while I search for reoccurring themes and overlapping clues. In short, this source must
have a bit of backbone – or spine. In this project, my spine source is a four-page letter
Aesi wrote from Rome in 1862 to ‘her dearest friend’ Caroline Clark (ML MS
272/188/97). In it, Aesi’s fluid handwriting fills the page, punctuated with curvaceous
flourishes, regular dashes and numerous exclamation marks. Of the 150 or so letters
comprising Aesi’s archive, only fifteen of those I have found, thus far, have been
written by, rather than to or about her.18 While the rest of her record offers insight into
how others perceived and interacted with Aesi, or how she mediated the world
through poetry and art, this is one of a few records that offers a rare and intimate
glimpse into my subject’s personality as well as her life through her own eyes. This is
so even in contrast with the other letters Aesi wrote, of which ten were written to her
mentor John Dunmore Lang with whom she maintained a friendly but typically
professional tone, while her other letters are marked by brevity or concern business
matters. Aesi’s letter to Caroline Clark is written to a dear friend with whom she grew
up on the North Shore and who had previously visited her in Italy. As Adelaide’s
archives also include a response from Caroline we can glean much about these two
intelligent, affectionate and ambitious women and their friendship, including the fact
that Caroline is clearly invested in Aesi’s artistic career. Such details reveal that both
women shared both a patriotic fervor for Australia and a self-conscious awareness of
their gender. By comparing this ‘spin source’ with the many other records in
Adelaide’s archive certain patterns begin to emerge that stimulate both speculation
and imagination.
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– Consistencies
As I immerse myself in Aesi’s life, lowering myself, archive by archive, onto the
ocean floor where I will remain while writing her story, I realize that if I am to see her
world through her eyes, I must jettison my judgments about the Victorian age. For
example, while it is tempting to construct Aesi as a nineteenth-century tubercular
heroine who died in an impoverished European garret; or to surrender the contingency
of her life to the tragic inevitability of her death; both my spine source and other
documents challenge this in ways that I hope will ensure I instead honour what Hugh
Trevor-Roper describes as ‘the still fluid context’ of her life (qtd. in Cochrane 2011:
8) 19.
For example, in this spine source, Aesi mentions a ‘very bad cold’ she has recently
had, describing the various efforts she has made to restore her voice; ‘mustard
poultices (which burnt her throat), ‘colourifics’, lemon and water and teas of all sorts’,
‘everything in fact but nothing did me any good’, except for ‘allopathy’, which she
cannot find in Rome. Despite the fact that she has ‘quite lost my voice for a month
tomorrow, and can only speak in a whisper’, Aesi nonetheless reassures her friend,
that she is ‘perfectly well’ (ML MS 272/188/97). Instead, she is writing to share her
excitement that she is just about to finish, what will become her most celebrated
painting, The Marriage in Cana:
I am delighted to tell you dearest that my Nozze is finished! The last stroke will be
given tomorrow on the hands of the harpist striking the chords in honour of the festival
… I have represented the harpist as yourself!20
When read alongside letters from her doctor, James Clark, as well as other sources in
her archive, it becomes clear that while Aesi regularly suffered bouts of debilitating
illness, she just as routinely ignored these so she could keep doing what she loved.21
Indeed it is her discreet defiance of both this fragility and other’s concerns for her
health that is fast becoming one of her core characteristics.22 Consider the following,
from the same letter, where she recounts a conversation between her mother and the
sculptor, John Gibson:
Gibson has been most affectionate and only anxious about my voice “make her go to
bed Mrs Ironside and don't let her get at the picture anymore she’ll be lost to us all if
you don’t” – but as I told you before, I am quite well and can’t lie in bed making a
show of being ill (Aesi’s underlining) (ML MS 272/188/97).
Similar themes can be found in the largest batch of correspondence in her archive; 22
letters from John Ruskin. Composed at the peak of his career in 1865, these letters
suggest that although he was a busy man, Ruskin, nonetheless, afforded his colonial
pupil not only time and concern but also a surprising degree of affection. His often-
dashed notes quickly shift from addressing ‘My Dear Miss Ironside’ to ‘My dear
sweet child’ (MSS 272/1/195). They also regularly express concerns for Adelaide’s
health: ‘Do be quiet’, he writes from Denmark Hill, ‘or you’ll kill yourself’ In
another, ‘observe how you waste your strength and fancy for no purpose’ and yet
another,’ Its alright if only you’ll keep yourself quiet’ (MSS 272/1/195). Some
references also hint at how Aesi’s health is already impacting upon her art. ‘Nothing
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can be done with shaky hands and beating heart’ he insists in one letter. And in
another:
Remember all the lines are drawn with a deliberate freedom. Even the flourishes are
made calmly, with intention throughout. I want to cure you of your slovenly ways of
seeing things in a hurry. Never do one touch in a hurry anymore (MSS 272/1/195).
Bit by bit, the sources coalesce, inviting speculation that Aesi was probably infected
with tuberculosis at the very time she was completing her most celebrated work,
energetically building networks and absorbed with the promotion of her art (ML MS
272/188/97). Such speculation encourages me to imagine how the tension between her
illness and ambitions may have manifested in her everyday life. I begin to sense in my
subject something of a ‘feverish temperament’, shaped by her determination to make
her mark as well as the sheer frustration of her physical limitations. No wonder
Ruskin observes that Aesi was not only ‘very fast to pick things up’, but also
constantly ‘moaning’ about staying in England (MSS 272/1/195). Aesi wanted to
return to Rome and then Sydney so she could commence what she believed would be
her life’s work: frescoing the public buildings of her beloved city. As the sources
from this period are infused with Aesi’s potent sense of urgency, it makes sense for
me to ensure my own voice is also infused with such energy when I write this chapter
of her story.
– Contradictions
I have also detected certain contradictions in the sources regarding Aesi’s apparent
‘genius’, a term that was used by several of her associates in reference to not only her
art but also what was described as her ‘wild, impulsive and (often) irrational’,
‘heroics’ (Nicholson 1860).23 However, given what we know of nineteenth-century
gender dynamics as well as the often-sweeping way the term genius was applied
among fellow romantics of the period, such notions need to be approached with
caution. There is, for example, little evidence of such ‘irrational’ ‘impetuosity’ in
Aesi’s 1862 letter from Rome, which is instead written with a steady hand and
describes the admiration her work has been receiving with modest, good humour:
Overbeck has been to see the picture he likes it very much and was very much
surprised to hear that I had come from Australia – he quite warmed up and pointed to
the Pilgrim and said something about my being like him. He so much admired the little
sketch of the genius, he took it to the light and said it was said it was exquisite,
beautiful for colour and form and quite pure … You know Reidel one of the
distinguished German artists here – Gibson bought him up and he was quite astonished
– Gibson said he praised you to your face – by George –he praised you enough after he
left! My picture is the star this year as they say – you know I tell you all this praise and
you will think I sound my own trumpet but I know you will enter into it all with kindest
love and join with me in working to elevate our sex and “hoist the colours of our dear
country” – Gibson says again “You see she wants to smash some of the old fellows, she
wants to make sure those men are ashamed of their art!” (ML MS 272/188/97).
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The above passage offers valuable insight into Aesi’s character and motivations,
suggesting she was highly conscious of her identity both as a woman and an
Australian and that these shaped the way she experienced life and was understood as
an artist. I also know that Aesi regularly associated in social environments where the
same qualities were likely to have attracted both curiosity and varying degrees of
condescension. Numerous sources suggest that Aesi was not only ‘married to her art’
but also determined to be recognized on her own terms for this talent. It is, therefore
possible that her apparent impetuosity was in fact impatience, perhaps even irritation
towards those who sought to patronise or constrain her. Could Browning’s reference
to Aesi’s ‘wild ways’ indicate that she was prepared to flout social conventions when
she found them tiresome? If so, references to Aesi’s ‘irrational’ genius need to be
carefully considered for they may reveal more about their authors than Aesi herself.
Such textual inconsistencies invite me to speculate that Aesi experienced and
expressed a degree of defiant self-consciousness regarding both her gender and
nationality. By situating such speculations within the broader cultural milieu of the
period, including not only nineteenth-century gender dynamics and the often-
heightened sentiments of the romantic era but also the neglected but nonetheless
nascent strain of native-born patriotism that informed Sydney society between the
1830s and 1850s, I can begin to imagine and advance a plausible interpretation of
Aesi’s character that will allow me construct certain episodes that are only hinted at in
her archive but are nonetheless likely to prove crucial to telling her story.
– Reading across the sources
Conducting a survey across the archive is also likely to reveal patterns, which in
Aesi’s case, point to a character that was shaped by a potent sense of personal destiny
as well as a particular talent for the theatrical. The earliest example I have of this
involves Aesi’s self-conscious creation of a public persona, when she fashioned her
penname aged fourteen. Another example, involves the poetry she published in the
newspapers during her early twenties. Typically in the form of dirges, stirrings songs
and patriotic verse that were rich with martial metaphors, these poems resonate with
rhythm and were obviously written to be recited.24 Indeed, as I study these works I
find myself imagining Aesi commanding a parlor of astounded guests as her admiring
mother watches on. I also wonder how such performances translated in the various
European and British contexts through which Aesi travelled. Did her fervour wash
with the Brownings, for instance? Or did our colonial patriot sometimes find herself
awe-struck and mute in the presence of those she emulated?
Such an appetite for performance is also evident in an event Aesi orchestrated, shortly
before she left Sydney, when she produced a banner for ‘the three arms of the
volunteer Force, the Artillery, the Cavalry and the Rifles’, who assembled in the
Outer Domain of Sydney’s Botanic Garden to receive it, along with a rousing speech
and a highly self-referential poem from a self-proclaimed ‘daughter of Australia’.25
The accounts of this well documented episode which occurred on a bitterly
intemperate day in June 1855 are so vivid I am able to imagine the wind thrashing at
what I know to have been Aesi’s long black hair, as she stood above the harbor
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beating out her declarative verse to those marshaled below. It is a scene I frequently
muse over as I suspect it was a particular triumph for Aesi, and one she revisited in
her memory during her long ‘self-imposed exile’ in Rome and England. Did it fuel
her desire to return to Sydney? I suspect so, and am planning to use it as a trope that
will allow me to introduce then continue exploring her character and motivations.
Again, shortly before leaving Sydney in 1855, Aesi produced a self-portrait that,
subject matter alone, speaks to her desire to record a threshold moment of her life for
future posterity. Having visited The Newcastle Regional Gallery and poured over the
original sketch for several hours, I can appreciate the confident, yet subtle lines and
delicate flesh tones Aesi used to record herself. However, closer inspection of this
work also highlights the contrast between the exquisite execution of two thirds of this
self-portrait and the bottom third, which she hastily filled with a scrawl of charcoal,
before dashing the word ‘Ideal’, with her signature and the date. These two portions
of the work contradict each other and reveal tensions in Aesi’s character in ways that
also lend weight to Ruskin’s urgings that Aesi take more care with her work.
Fig. 1. Adelaide Ironside, Self-portrait 1855, Newcastle Region Art Gallery, NSW. Pencil, wash and
crayon on grey paper, 26.2 x 36.8cm
Aesi’s taste for the theatrical also offers a way of understanding her reputation in
Rome as a medium who sketched visions from a crystal ball (see Poulton 1987: 57-
826). As well as providing an outlet for her interest in the metaphysical, such
performances must have offered ‘Adelaide de Australie’, as she was sometimes
known in Italy, with a way of distinguishing herself socially; allowing her to
command an audience as well as a degree of authority that may have been otherwise
difficult for a colonial woman to secure among her British peers. Other records in her
archive hint at such elements, including a letter from Gibson in which he refers to her
‘My Dear Spirit’ and a terse response from Ruskin in which admonishes her for
thinking herself in ‘a higher sphere’ (Gibson; Ruskin 1865).
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Reading across the archive these events and episodes suggests that Aesi was adept at
stage managing social occasions and using these to command attention. Combined
with other clues in the sources I have begun to speculate that such behaviors were not
always beguiling but, sometimes even misjudged and off-key. My historical
knowledge of the native-born demographic to which Aesi self-consciously identified,
also invites speculation that her desire to be seen, heard and admired was, at least,
partially motivated by the way she understood and experienced herself as a colonial
woman intent upon ‘hoisting the colours’ of her country, as she wrote to Caroline
Clark in 1862. In recounting her life, I need to take these influences into
consideration, all the while tempering these observations with the fact that what
remains of her record is random, partial, porous and highly subjective.
Patriot – Republican – Poet – Artist – Medium. Aesi clearly experimented with and
expressed herself in ways that embodied many of the great preoccupations of her age.
However exceptional she may have been as a colonial woman, her life nonetheless
suggests that colonists cannot be simply generalized as obscure or passive recipients
who perched on the periphery of empire. Instead, her life suggests that nineteenth-
century Australians could operate as energetic participants, even performers capable
of commanding attention at the very heart of the so-called metropole. For me, it is,
perhaps, this fact and the entwined relationship between Aesi and the romantic age
that I find most fascinating. It also explains my working title for this biography, which
comes from an unpublished poem Aesi wrote in her diary 1852, around the time
Deniehy eloped with the other Adelaide:
Have I not followed thee, followed thee,
With a faithful constancy?
And thro’ long, long years of woe
Have nev’ even let thee know
The secrets of my soul!
True is my wild love, true to thee!
Deep, deep as the fathomless sea!
Tis the love of soul to soul allied
Of the long and faithfully tried
And that asks not to be lov’d (SL NSW PXA1759).
Aesi’s only other biographer suggests these lines refer to her unrequited love for
Deniehy. Recently. I was lucky to see the ‘ideal’ sketch Adelaide did of Deniehy,
which is still part of a private family collection. This portrait is one of a few of her
works still in its original frame and this, coupled with the intricate gilt paper that
carefully surrounds the image itself suggests it was one of Adelaide’s prized
possessions in ways that add weight to speculations regarding this unrequited love.
For me, however, the notion of Wild Love not only opens up these possibilities but it
also evokes Aesi’s feverish temperament, her great passion for her art and her
country, as well as the very romantic and radical ideas that inspired so many during
this period and which, in Aesi’s case, may perhaps have eventually ‘consumed’ and
killed her (Poulton 1987: 28-36)27.
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Structure and voice
Already a structure for Wild Love has presented itself. Divided into sections that
loosely correspond to Aesi’s preferred artistic mediums, I will draw inspiration from
the watercolour botanic illustrations, which first propelled Aesi to international fame,
using this palette to inform her colonial years. Aesi’s time in England parallels with
an increase production of charcoal and crayon portraiture in her sketchbook and will
influence how I write the shades, smudges and sharp lines of Victorian London. In
Italy, Aesi produced several large oil paintings, which will inspire how I capture both
her ambition and the sensory evocations of Italy. Throughout all of this, Aesi
remained fascinated with fresco, and with its metaphysical subject matter and method,
fresco promises to offer a potent metaphor for the last years of Aesi’s life.
And what of my voice? I am still preparing my materials. With so much research
before me it will be sometime before I wet my brush. However, when I was writing
my first speculative biography, I recall sharing the road with the romantic fiction
writers, social novelists and satirists who influenced how I wrote my imagined these
historical characters and shaped the narrative. This time, however, I am working with
a different story and need fresh horses and new riders. There is the troubled colonial
poet, Charles Harpur, who Aesi so admired that she wrote him a sonnet. He and
Deniehy’s satirical prose will guide me through the early years of her life. I also know
Adelaide admired Browning’s Casa Guidi Windows and that Browning’s radical
poem Aurora Leigh became a massive popular hit at the very time Adelaide first meet
the Brownings in Florence. These influences will shape my thinking as will Germaine
de Staël’s novel Corrine, or Italy, which concerns a female artist living in Italy who is
crowned for her artist genius. This novel inspired generations of expatriate artists to
visit in Italy, including, no doubt, Aesi herself, whose works include at least one self-
portrait crowned in a laurel. There is also Aesi’s own verse. Drawing upon her poems
works will help me find her rhythm, to see things as she once did. Drawing upon these
various influences will, I hope, summons the biographer’s shadow and allow me to
find what Aesi described as the ‘secrets’ of her ‘soul’.
Conclusion
The purpose of this article was to explore how speculation and imagination inform the
way we engage with the archives as we craft a historical figure into a biographical
subject. I have suggested we should resist the impulse to romance archival gaps by
devoting our first attention to that which actually remains. The innately idiosyncratic
nature of archives ensures that there will be plenty of challenges in overlapping and
contradictory sources that are likely to necessitate the use of not only speculation but
also imagination. Identifying a spine source with which to compare other records is a
helpful way of detecting such patterns. In addition to this close attention to textual
overlaps, reading across the archive is also likely to yield all sorts of other
possibilities. And as patterns begin to coalesce, they encourage speculation and invite
decisions that invariably inform the way we imagine, then write our subject.
It is precisely this process of dwelling with the sources that ensures our imaginings
are deeply embedded within and informed by the historical record. This is what
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historian Peter Cochrane calls ‘the paradox of groundedness and transcendence’, that
imbues historical biography with both ‘weight and wings’ (2011: 83–97). For me,
such respect for the record is how we earn the right to write our subject our way. In
addition to this, the longer we linger with the sources, the more likely we are to sense
the biographer’s shadow guiding us in certain directions. Perhaps the image of Aesi
hastily scrawling charcoal across the bottom third of her self-portrait also serves as a
useful cautionary tale. By avoiding the temptation to rush the gaps and by focusing
instead upon the overlaps, we might instead attune ourselves to Ruskin’s advice ‘to
never do one touch in a hurry anymore’. By looking calmly at that which actually
remains, we might begin to craft our subject with careful but ‘deliberate freedom’.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Paula Hamilton and Alecia Simmonds from the University of Technology,
Sydney for reading earlier drafts of this article. As ever, their insight has been illuminating and
inspiring.
Endnotes
1. For an overview of the relationship between biography and history see; Meister (2018) and
Caine (2010). Both discuss a recent ‘biographical turn’, signaling a shift from disinterest and
suspicion to biography within historical scholarship to a new respect and interest. However,
Meister’s more recent survey suggests this ‘turn’ has been exaggerated, at least within
Canada. There are a number of Australian historians exploring the intersections between
history, biography and imagination, see, for example, Cochrane (2011), Hamilton (2005),
Margery (2008) and Russell (2009).
2. There has been much recent discussion about archival gaps, see, for examples, Burton (2005),
Baker, Brien and Sulway (2017), Ludmilla (2000), de Matos and Nelson (2015), Kineke
(1994). For my own work, see Lindsey (2016a, 2016b).
3. Donna Lee Brien is Australia’s leading expert in speculative biography. Her publications on
this topic include: Brien (2014, 2015, 2017).
4. For an overview of those who have used speculative biography for these purposes see Brien’s
articles cited in endnote 4 above. Other notable examples include Painter (1990); See also
Baker, Brien and Sulway (2017) for examples of recent experimentation within Australia.
5. In 2009, Vaucluse House purchased a sketch by Ironside thought to be one of Wentworth’s
daughters.
6. Daniel Henry Deniehy (1828-1865) was the native-born man thought to have coined the
phrase ‘Bunyip aristocracy’ in reference to Wentworth’s efforts to establish a colonial
aristocracy. In fact, the precise term he used in this context are often misquoted and somewhat
disputed.
7. See ‘Ironside sketchbook’ PXA1759 SL NSW. In Ironside’s original ‘album’, this poem is
titled ‘Song’ and dated 1852. Deniehy’s late 19th century biographer appears to be responsible
for perpetuating the notion of Ironside’s unrequited love for Deniehy, see Martin (1884: 3-5).
8. There are 9 letters from James Clark in State Library of NSW Mitchell, MLMSS272/1/5 -
ML/MSS272/1/39, commencing 19 February 1857.
9. SL NSW Mitchell Library contains letters from Charles Eastlake and his wife, Elizabeth:
ML/MSS/272/4-6. These date from June and July 1865. The Society of Australian
Genealogists (SAG) holds additional letters from Charles Eastlake dating 1865, 4/12973
Ironside SAG.
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10. 22 letters from John Ruskin are held SL NSW ML MSS272/190 onwards. SAG holds 10
letters from Joan Agnew, Ruskin’s niece and caretaker.
11. The most extensive collections associated with Adelaide Ironside are in the SL NSW’s
Mitchell Library: ML A1826, PXA1759, MSS 272/1 and PA1759 CY2620 and SAG. SAG
also holds a body of original records that are yet to be accessioned, indexed and available to
the public and which I am consequently waiting to review. Records relating to the Redman
Family are in NSW State Records. Aesi’s artwork is held in both private and public
collections including the National Gallery of Australia, Art Gallery of NSW and Newcastle
Regional Art Gallery. Aesi’s most celebrated oil painting, The Marriage in Cana (her Nozze)
is with the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
12. Between 1850 and 1855 Adelaide wrote a series of poems in her ‘Album’ PXA1759 SL NSW.
Between 10 January 1853 and 1 April 1854, she also published 20 poems in The People’s
Advocate and 1 in The Empire, 10 January 1853. One of these was also published in the
Leicestershire Mercury, 4 June 1853.
13. There are numerous newspaper clippings relating to Ironside in the Mitchell holdings. These
include articles published during her life such as Sydney Morning Herald, 16 May 1863,
numerous obituaries syndicated from The Athenaeum, 11 May 1867, 625 and later pieces.
14. EBB & RB to Harriet G. Hosmer, 27 March 1856. 3755, The Browning’s Correspondence, 22,
161 - 165, HGH to EBB & RB, 30 April 1856, Rome, The Browning’s Correspondence, 22,
199-202; EBB to Isa Blagden, 17 September 1857, The Browning’s Correspondence, 24, 140-
142
15. ‘We should seek out inconsistencies and gaps and see if we can make creative use of them. …
I’m someone who doesn’t regard the facts as a constraint. I regard them as a stimulus to
creative thought.’ (Mantel 2017: Lecture 2)
16. John Ruskin’s archives are voluminous and held in a number of institutions including the
Manchester University Library; University of Leeds Special Collections; the University of
Lancaster’s Ruskin Library; the Royal Academy of Art and the National Gallery of Art.
17. For example, SL NSW MLA1826 contains correspondence between descendants discussing
various attempts to locate Ironside’s lost artwork. While much of this archive is divided
between SL NSW and SAG, in mid May 2018 I also learned that a considerable collection of
sources and artworks are held in a private family collection.
18. While editing this article I found and viewed a batch of correspondence from Ironside to J.D.
Lang, in SL NSW: John Dumore Lang Papers, 1823-1887, A2221- A2249, MLA 2228, vol 8.
I have also had the opportunity to review the sources and artwork held in the private family
collection. This material will add further ‘spine’ to the key sources I use to speculate, imagine
and write my subject.
19. Cochrane was quoting from Trevor-Roper 1981.
20. Aesi referred to ‘The Marriage in Cana’ as her ‘Nozze’, which is Italian for ‘wedding’.
21. See note 8 for the reference details of correspondence from James Clark. References to Aesi’s
health can be found throughout her archive. See SAG correspondence from Joan Agnew and
Virginia Somers and in SL NSW MSS 272/1, from Charles Nicholson, JD Lang and Caroline
Clark.
22. Aesi describes not only ‘great pains in the chest’ and how Gibson said she ‘looked quite
blooming’, but also that she is ‘transparent in the skin’. Such descriptions may correspond to
some of the early symptoms of tuberculosis.
23. See also endnote 9 for Eastlake correspondence and note 10 for Ruskin correspondence.
24. ‘Thank you so much for the poetry but you must read it to me your own dear self in your own
way’ (Joan Agnew to Adelaide Ironside, n.d., 4/12973 SAG).
25. SL NSW PXA1759. ‘Banner Poem’, 5 February 1855: ‘ Glory to ye banded few/ Of Gallant
fellow sworn and true! / Take the Banner Sons of Fire!/ Hoist the warlike to inspire!/ Each to
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win Historic name,/ Roll god of war in lists of Fame! / Maim of honour! “Union Jack”/ AESI
waiting onto tack/ Now the Red Cross joins these three/ Nerve yourself to send it me!’. See
also the reply from Henry Holloran of the Volunteer Crops (1855: 2).
26. The English Painter Seymour Kirkup was so impressed with Aesi’s abilities as a spiritualist
that he compared her with his ‘old friend, William Blake’ (Sharp 1892: 261, 266-7). See
Ironside’s Sketchbook, PXA1759, which contains several apocalyptic images that look like
they may have been executed during such a state.
27. See also Sketchbook, PXA1759 SL NSW.
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