Marie Bjelke Petersen
Australian writer
Died when: 94 years 292 days (1137 months)Star Sign: Capricorn
Marie Caroline Bjelke Petersen (23 December 1874 – 11 October 1969) was a Danish-Australian novelist and physical culture teacher.She wrote nine popular romance novels between 1917 and 1937.
Her novels were set in Australia, mostly in rural Tasmania, and represent an alternative vision of Australia to that of earlier writers.
Marie Bjelke Petersen's biographer, Alison Alexander, wrote:"With her Danish background Marie was not steeped in the laconic lore of the bush propagated by the Bulletin and its school of admirers, and she set out to glorify her adopted land, to depict Australia as a cultured civilised place, with charming people (setting aside the villains), a quite different portrayal from that usually found in the literature of her day." It has been claimed that her works were more popular in the United States and England than Australia.
Her brothers founded physical culture institutes which continued to function through the end of the 20th century, and her nephew, Joh Bjelke-Petersen, became the Premier of Queensland.
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