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The Red Witch: A Biography of Katharine Susannah Prichard
Novelist, journalist and activist Katharine Susannah Prichard won fame for vivid novels that broke new ground depicting distinctly Australian ways of life and work - from Gippsland pioneers and West Australian prospectors to Pilbara station hands and outback opal miners. Her prize-winning debut The Pioneers made her a celebrity but she turned away from jaunty romances to write a trio of inter-war classics, Working Bullocks, Coonardoo and Haxby's Circus. Heralded in her time as the 'hope of the Australian novel', her good friend Miles Franklin called Prichard 'Australia's most distinguished tragedian'. This biography of a literary giant traces Prichard's journey from the genteel poverty of her Melbourne childhood to her impulsive marriage to Victoria Cross winner Hugo Throssell, and finally on to her long widowhood as a 'red witch', marked out from society by her loyalty to the Soviet Union and her unconventional ways. Through meticulous archival research and historical detective work, Nathan Hobby reveals many unknown aspects of Prichard's life, including the likely identity of the mysterious lover who influenced her deeply in her twenties, her withdrawal from politics during her remarkable five-year literary peak and an intimate friendship with poet Hugh McCrae. Lively and detailed, The Red Witch is a gripping narrative alert to the drama and tragedy of Prichard's remarkable life.
480 pages, Hardcover
First published May 3, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
June 24, 2023
‘Katharine now exists on the edge of living memory.’
Katherine Susannah Prichard (KSP) (4 December 1883 – 2 October 1969) was a writer and political activist. Before I read Mr Hobby’s biography, I confess that I was much more aware of KSP’s political activism and membership of the Communist Party of Australia than of her writing. I have not (yet) read any of her books, but I will.
KSP was born when Australia was still a collection of British colonies and lived until the middle of the Vietnam war. Her world view changed during this period, as she moved through various stages from Christianity to Communism.
I found this book easy to read. Mr Hobby has arranged this book in five chronological parts representing different phases of KSP’s life, which provide the biographical context for her work:
Kattie 1883-1907
Freewoman 1907-1919
Mrs Throssell 1919-1933
Comrade 1934-1949
Katya 1950-1969.
I am intrigued. While I knew something of the lives of both KSP’s husband Hugo Throssell VC and her son Ric Throssell, I had not focussed on her life and work. Another Australian author for me to read.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
Katherine Susannah Prichard (KSP) (4 December 1883 – 2 October 1969) was a writer and political activist. Before I read Mr Hobby’s biography, I confess that I was much more aware of KSP’s political activism and membership of the Communist Party of Australia than of her writing. I have not (yet) read any of her books, but I will.
KSP was born when Australia was still a collection of British colonies and lived until the middle of the Vietnam war. Her world view changed during this period, as she moved through various stages from Christianity to Communism.
I found this book easy to read. Mr Hobby has arranged this book in five chronological parts representing different phases of KSP’s life, which provide the biographical context for her work:
Kattie 1883-1907
Freewoman 1907-1919
Mrs Throssell 1919-1933
Comrade 1934-1949
Katya 1950-1969.
I am intrigued. While I knew something of the lives of both KSP’s husband Hugo Throssell VC and her son Ric Throssell, I had not focussed on her life and work. Another Australian author for me to read.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
December 27, 2025
Many years ago now I read "Haxby's Circus" by KSP and to my mind it is as close to being The Great Australian Novel as anyone has ever gotten. It is a great literary/historical injustice that more people haven't read it.
Nathan Hobby has done wonders here unearthing the woman behind the words.
His research is meticulous and thorough. No stones were left unturned.
He gets at the good, bad and the ugly of Katherine's life and character.
The narrative flows easily and the style is almost conversational without losing gravitas.
Highly recommended for anyone interested in one of Australia's true literary greats.
Nathan Hobby has done wonders here unearthing the woman behind the words.
His research is meticulous and thorough. No stones were left unturned.
He gets at the good, bad and the ugly of Katherine's life and character.
The narrative flows easily and the style is almost conversational without losing gravitas.
Highly recommended for anyone interested in one of Australia's true literary greats.
April 22, 2022
Having come to the end of Nathan Hobby's superb new biography of Katharine Susannah Prichard (1883-1969), I've come to the conclusion that I would have liked her very much — but I'm not sure that she would have liked me! Despite all the circumstances against her, she was brave in contesting the prevailing political climate, tenacious in pursuing her craft as an author and generous to a fault. But she fell out with longstanding friends who didn't share her political views and I probably would have been one of those.
But I would still have bought KSP's books. Indeed, I still am. Reading the bio prompted me to buy two more, so that in addition to those I've already reviewed, now I've added her last novel Subtle Flame (1967) and her second short story collection Potch and Colour (1944) to my existing Prichard TBR i.e. Working Bullocks (1926), and Intimate Strangers (1939).
The biography hasn't convinced me that I should track down Windlestraws (1916) or Moon of Desire (1941). Windlestraws, KSP's first novel, was published in the wake of The Pioneers (1915) after it won a major prize but if the publishers were hoping to cash in on her success, they were disappointed because it was soon forgotten. Moon of Desire was a potboiler, written when Prichard was short of money and hoping for a Hollywood option. Though the biography recognises some 'Prichardian' elements in it and it had some favourable reviews, she herself thought it was tedious. This is notable because she was not generally hard on her own work. From 1940 onwards she was more likely to ascribe her setbacks to politics. She had confidence in her own writing despite the criticism that came her way.
I mention my purchases here because, for an ordinary reader, the test of any literary biography is: is it good to read even if you're not familiar with the author who's the subject of the bio? And, while it's always a pleasure to see a biographer's coverage of books we know, does the bio work just as well when discussing the ones we haven't read? Does it inspire us to want to read more of the author's work?
Nathan Hobby's masterful biography of Katharine Susannah Prichard does all of that and more. It's in the same league of exceptional literary biographies as Jill Roe's bio of Miles Franklin (2008) David Marr's of Patrick White (1991), Hazel Rowley's of Christina Stead (1993, revised 2007), Karen Lamb's of Thea Astley (2015) and Brenda Niall's of The Boyds (2002). The Red Witch is a fine addition to the cultural capital of the nation, and Melbourne University Press has recognised that by publishing it in its prestige imprint, Miegunyah Press. As it says on their website:
The Red Witch is a chronological biography, which begins by contesting some of KSP's childhood memories fictionalised in The Wild Oats of Han (1928) and in her autobiography Child of the Hurricane (1964). It was interesting to read later in the bio that both KSP and her son Ric Throssell lamented the time she spent on that autobiography... she felt compelled to write it in response to a PhD thesis about her work by Cyril Cook.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2022/04/22/t...
But I would still have bought KSP's books. Indeed, I still am. Reading the bio prompted me to buy two more, so that in addition to those I've already reviewed, now I've added her last novel Subtle Flame (1967) and her second short story collection Potch and Colour (1944) to my existing Prichard TBR i.e. Working Bullocks (1926), and Intimate Strangers (1939).
The biography hasn't convinced me that I should track down Windlestraws (1916) or Moon of Desire (1941). Windlestraws, KSP's first novel, was published in the wake of The Pioneers (1915) after it won a major prize but if the publishers were hoping to cash in on her success, they were disappointed because it was soon forgotten. Moon of Desire was a potboiler, written when Prichard was short of money and hoping for a Hollywood option. Though the biography recognises some 'Prichardian' elements in it and it had some favourable reviews, she herself thought it was tedious. This is notable because she was not generally hard on her own work. From 1940 onwards she was more likely to ascribe her setbacks to politics. She had confidence in her own writing despite the criticism that came her way.
I mention my purchases here because, for an ordinary reader, the test of any literary biography is: is it good to read even if you're not familiar with the author who's the subject of the bio? And, while it's always a pleasure to see a biographer's coverage of books we know, does the bio work just as well when discussing the ones we haven't read? Does it inspire us to want to read more of the author's work?
Nathan Hobby's masterful biography of Katharine Susannah Prichard does all of that and more. It's in the same league of exceptional literary biographies as Jill Roe's bio of Miles Franklin (2008) David Marr's of Patrick White (1991), Hazel Rowley's of Christina Stead (1993, revised 2007), Karen Lamb's of Thea Astley (2015) and Brenda Niall's of The Boyds (2002). The Red Witch is a fine addition to the cultural capital of the nation, and Melbourne University Press has recognised that by publishing it in its prestige imprint, Miegunyah Press. As it says on their website:
The Miegunyah Press* is a special imprint of Melbourne University Publishing that publishes prestigious books of the highest printing and design quality at affordable prices. Miegunyah Press books are absorbingly original, visually grand and eminently collectable.
The Red Witch is a chronological biography, which begins by contesting some of KSP's childhood memories fictionalised in The Wild Oats of Han (1928) and in her autobiography Child of the Hurricane (1964). It was interesting to read later in the bio that both KSP and her son Ric Throssell lamented the time she spent on that autobiography... she felt compelled to write it in response to a PhD thesis about her work by Cyril Cook.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2022/04/22/t...
June 19, 2022
I thoroughly enjoyed this biography of an author with whom I was vaguely familiar and now feel I know intimately. KSP lived at some pivotal moments in the modern history of Australia and it is fascinating to read her Stalinist views with the lens of hindsight. She would have been horrified at the current state of Australia's politics and the comfortable middle class lifestyles of much of the populace which has led to their political apathy. I was also very interested in her experience of the suicides of people close to her and her resultant cloying relationship with her only son. This comprehensive contribution illuminates the cultural landscape of Western Australia at a time when people's reaction to war and a depressed economy fundamentally shaped their ideology. Bravo to the author for providing a readable and engaging biography that draws together the disparate parts of KSP's life with just the right level of analysis and kindness.
March 16, 2023
Having been to the writer's centre in Perth that was once Katharine Susannah Prichard's home, I was intrigued to learn more about her life in The Red Witch, which had as its backdrop the wars and trauma and hardships of Australia, London and Russia in the 20th century.
This is a wonderful literary biography - both of her and of the literary world at that time, full of vivid detail and beautifully written.
This is a wonderful literary biography - both of her and of the literary world at that time, full of vivid detail and beautifully written.
August 17, 2022
Katharine Susannah Prichard may be a familiar name to Australian readers, who know her as an important twentieth century literary figure—famous for her novels and notorious for her communist politics. They might well pick up this well-researched and assuredly-written biography to understand more about the woman behind books that they read in school. As an American reader without much prior familiarity with its subject, I picked up this book out of sheer curiosity, after corresponding with the author about a minor figure in Prichard's life about whom I had done some research of my own: one Charles Garvice, an English author of dubious talents and prodigious sales in the Edwardian era, who was the judge of the first literary contest that launched Prichard's career. I didn't expect to care so much about Prichard, or to become so deeply immersed in her story, but as I read The Red Witch, but I did and I was. Such is the power of a fascinating life, well told. Some of the details of Prichard's life (the web of romantic affairs, the untimely losses of so many people close to her, the comedy of her sex toys falling into the hands of government inspectors who suspect her teenage son, the tragedy of her husband's economic ruin in misbegotten real estate deals and rodeo shows before taking his life) would smack of melodrama, in purpler prose, but Hobby has a steady hand and voice. He sets these sensational incidents down amidst a thoughtful and scholarly (though never stuffy) analysis of her literary output, and a measured account of her political activities when the communist cause supplanted literature as the main concern of her later years. Prichard comes across as a formidable woman, both of and before her time. It is an engrossing book.
June 11, 2022
Fifty years have passed since Australian author Katharine Susannah Prichard's death, and here is Nathan Hobby's biography. Time and politics have not been kind to some aspects of her legacy: for example, Coonardoo needs to be read within the time it was written and would never appear on school reading lists today, and her staunchly pro-Stalinist political views, controversial then, would appeal to an even smaller group of adherents now. But I think that she would embrace the roundedness of Nathan Hobby's biography, which combines beautifully the personal, the literary and most importantly, the political in presenting her life.
The book is arranged in five chronological parts: Kattie 1883-1907; Freewoman 1907-1919; Mrs Throssell 1919-1933; Comrade 1934-1949; Katya 1950-1969. I really enjoyed the Afterword, set in Prichard's former home in Greenmount W.A. in 2019 when the author comes on stage properly. Nathan Hobby has been present in the book throughout, especially in his appraisals of Katharine's writing, but it has always been behind the scenes, which is the way I prefer it. But I was glad that he stepped forward at the end.
He has been well-served by Miegunyah Press, which has given him expansive footnotes, an excellent index and a bibliography as well. The footnotes reveal the rich archive of correspondence that underpins Hobby's work, and the variety of newspaper sources from which has drawn.
Nathan Hobby has presented Katharine Susannah Prichard to us in all her aspects - as lover, mother, wife, comrade, writer, companion and public figure - with diligence, empathy and tempered admiration. No subject could ask more of her biographer.
For my complete review, please visit:
https://residentjudge.com/2022/06/11/...
The book is arranged in five chronological parts: Kattie 1883-1907; Freewoman 1907-1919; Mrs Throssell 1919-1933; Comrade 1934-1949; Katya 1950-1969. I really enjoyed the Afterword, set in Prichard's former home in Greenmount W.A. in 2019 when the author comes on stage properly. Nathan Hobby has been present in the book throughout, especially in his appraisals of Katharine's writing, but it has always been behind the scenes, which is the way I prefer it. But I was glad that he stepped forward at the end.
He has been well-served by Miegunyah Press, which has given him expansive footnotes, an excellent index and a bibliography as well. The footnotes reveal the rich archive of correspondence that underpins Hobby's work, and the variety of newspaper sources from which has drawn.
Nathan Hobby has presented Katharine Susannah Prichard to us in all her aspects - as lover, mother, wife, comrade, writer, companion and public figure - with diligence, empathy and tempered admiration. No subject could ask more of her biographer.
For my complete review, please visit:
https://residentjudge.com/2022/06/11/...
July 30, 2022
Thoroughly enjoyed this biography. Wonderfully written and referenced with a lovely turn of phrase. Hobby has a gentle yet authoritative narrative voice. The only awkwardness was in accounting for century-old attitudes to Indigenous issues which were simplistically labeled ‘offensive’ or ‘insensitive’ - a bit more critical language could be usefully taken up here. And also a shocking skimming over of the baby with Downs being put in a home a dying 2 months later! Why would they die? The end of KSP’s life was long-coming; she seemed to go on forever while the narrative energy was winding down. Overall such a compelling story and life. Sheer pleasure to read.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews