The collection contains typescripts with handwritten alterations of:

• Maurice Guest
• The Getting of Wisdom
• The Fortunes of Richard Mahony
• The Young Cosima
• Myself when Young
• most of the short stories.

In addition, there are handwritten drafts of:

• The Young Cosima
• Myself when Young
• the translation of Niels Lyhne.

There are also a number of notebooks Richardson used when writing The Fortunes of Richard Mahony and The Young Cosima.

Richardson composed the music of many songs, the words of which were written by English and German poets. The original manuscripts of these songs are held in series 7 of the Richardson papers.

The collection is extremely strong in personal and family papers. The papers of Walter and Mary Richardson date from 1854 to 1895 and include:

• letters from:
  • family
  • friends
  • patients
• diaries
• notebooks
• medical records
• a scrapbook
• autobiographical notes.

Richardson's own papers include:

• correspondence with her:
  • mother
  • sister
  • husband
• correspondence with:
  • Paul Solanges
  • Oliver Stonor
  • Jacob Schwartz
• diaries (1897–1946)
• music programs
• personal documents
• cutting books compiled by Richardson, Roncoroni and Capon (1908–1981).

There are also some papers of John Robertson and Roncoroni.

There is a good selection of photographs in the collection, including:

• several cartes de visite of Richardson's parents
• photographs of Richardson and her sister in Germany
• photographs of Robertson.

The Papers of Henry Handel Richardson contains typescripts with handwritten alterations of:

• Maurice Guest
• The Getting of Wisdom
• The Fortunes of Richard Mahony
• The Young Cosima
• Myself when Young
• most of the short stories.

In addition, there are:

• handwritten drafts of:
  • The Young Cosima
  • Myself when Young
• the translation of Niels Lyhne.

There are also a number of notebooks Richardson used when writing The Fortunes of Richard Mahony and The Young Cosima.

Richardson composed the music of many songs, the words of which were written by English and German poets. The original manuscripts of these songs are held in series 7 of the Richardson papers.

The collection is extremely strong in personal and family papers. The papers of Walter and Mary Richardson date from 1854 to 1895 and include:

• letters from:
  • family
  • friends
  • patients
• diaries
• notebooks
• medical records
• a scrapbook
• autobiographical notes. 

Richardson's own papers include:

• correspondence with her:
  • mother
  • sister
  • husband
• correspondence with:
  • Paul Solanges
  • Oliver Stonor
  • Jacob Schwartz
• diaries (1897–1946)
• music programs
• personal documents
• cutting books compiled by Richardson, Roncoroni and Capon (1908–1981).

There are also some papers of John Robertson and Roncoroni.

There is a good selection of photographs in the collection, including:

• several cartes de visite of Richardson's parents
• photographs of Richardson and her sister in Germany
• photographs of Robertson.

The following collections contain letters of Richardson or papers relating to her life and work:

• Papers of Vance and Nettie Palmer
• Papers of Frank Dalby Davison
• Letters to Mrs Eves
• Papers of HM Green
• Letters to R Toole Stott
• Papers of Dorothy Green
• Letters to Mary Kernot

The Palmer papers contain the most substantial group of Richardson material, including:

• 64 letters from Richardson to Nettie Palmer (1927–1945)
• 21 letters from Roncoroni (1946–1963)
• manuscript and typescript notes
• articles
• broadcasts
• cuttings
• drafts of Palmer’s book, Henry Handel Richardson: A Study (1950).

The Library holds 3 oil portraits of Richardson by the Australian expatriate artist Rupert Bunny. They are undated – probably painted in the period between 1910 and 1930.

In addition to the photographs held with the Richardson papers, there are about 50 photographs of:

• Henry Handel Richardson
• her father Walter Richardson
• her sister Lilian
• George Robertson
• Olga Roncoroni
• various houses in Victoria and England associated with the family.

They date from 1885 to 1940. The gold medal awarded to Richardson by the Australian Literature Society in 1929 is also held.

Bibliography

Gay Howells, Henry Handel Richardson 1870–1946: A Bibliography to Commemorate the Centenary of her Birth, National Library of Australia, Canberra, 1970

Scholarly editions

• Clive Probyn and Bruce Steele of Monash University have edited all of Richardson's major writings:
• Maurice Guest (1998)
• The Getting of Wisdom (2001)
• Niels Lyhne (2003)
• The Young Cosima (2004)
• The Fortunes of Richard Mahony (2007)
• Bruce Steele and Richard Divall edited A Collection of Songs by Henry Handel Richardson (2000)

Correspondence

• Clive Probyn and Bruce Steele (editors), Henry Handel Richardson: The Letters, 3 vols, Miegunyah Press, Melbourne, 2000
• Elizabeth Webby and Gillian Sykes (editors), Walter and Mary: The Letters of Walter and Mary Richardson, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 2000

Biographical and critical works

• Michael Ackland, Henry Handel Richardson: A Life, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 2004
• Vincent Buckley, Henry Handel Richardson, Lansdowne Press, Melbourne, 1961
• Clark Axel, Finding Herself in Fiction: Henry Handel Richardson 1896–1910, Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne, 2001
• Axel Clark, Henry Handel Richardson: Fiction in the Making, Simon & Schuster, Sydney, 1990
• Dorothy Green, Ulysses Bound: Henry Handel Richardson and her Fiction, ANU Press, Canberra, 1973
• National Library of Australia, Henry Handel Richardson 1870–1946: Papers Presented at a Centenary Seminar, National Library of Australia, Canberra, 1972
• Karen Hewitt, Henry Handel Richardson: A Critical Study, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1985
• Eva Jarring Corones, The Portrayal of Women in the Fiction of Henry Handel Richardson, CWK Gleerup, [Lund], [1983]
• Leonie Kramer, Henry Handel Richardson and Some of her Sources, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1954
• Nettie Palmer, Henry Handel Richardson: A Study, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1950
• Catherine Pratt, Resisting Fiction: The Novels of Henry Handel Richardson, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane, 1999
• Edna Purdie and Olga M Roncoroni (editors), Henry Handel Richardson: Some Personal Impressions, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1957

The Young Cosima books

The collection of books acquired by Richardson when writing The Young Cosima totals 72 titles (98 volumes). They are mostly in German and include:

• many biographies of Richard Wagner
• books on:
  • Cosima Wagner
  • Hans von Bülow
  • Franz Liszt
  • other 19-century musicians.

The literary manuscripts of Henry Handel Richardson were purchased from Olga Roncoroni in 1946 and 1948. They constituted the first major literary collection to be acquired by the Library.

In 1971, an important collection of family papers, including diaries and letters of Walter Richardson, were sold to the Library by Walter Neustatter, the nephew of Richardson.

In 1972, Roncoroni donated further manuscripts and documents and in 1983 Margaret Capon presented the diaries, cutting books and annotated publications of Richardson. Some additional letters were acquired from Angela Neustatter in 1996.

In 1993, a collection of books used by Richardson when writing The Young Cosima was sold to the Library by the University of Tasmania Library. They had originally been purchased by E Morris Miller in 1947.

In 2001, the original music scores composed by Richardson were donated by Clive Probyn and Bruce Steele under the Cultural Gifts Program in 2001. Many of the photographs of Richardson and her family were received with the papers, while Dorothy Green lent about 30 photographs for copying.

The Richardson papers are held in the Manuscripts Collection. The finding aid, which includes a name index to the correspondence. With a few exceptions, the papers have all been microfilmed.

The portraits are held in the Pictures Collection. They have been catalogued individually and also digitised. The collection of photographs, which is also held in the Pictures Collection, has been catalogued at the collection level.

A collection of early editions of Richardson's books, including several proof copies, is held with the Richardson papers in the Manuscripts Collection. The books used by Richardson in the writing of The Young Cosima are also held in the Manuscripts Collection. All the books in these 2 collections are listed in the finding aid. The other publications listed above are held in the Australian Collection.

This guide was prepared using these references:

• Dorothy Green, Ethel Florence (Henry Handel) Richardson (1870–1946), Australian Dictionary of Biography online
• Graeme Powell, Building an Archive: The HH Richardson Papers in the National Library of Australia, Australian Literary Studies, vol 18 (3), May 1998, pp 213–18.
• LA Triebel, Source Material for The Young Cosima, Meanjin, vol 14 (2), 1955, pp 200–2.
• Elizabeth Webby, Walter and Mary Richardson's Letters and The Fortunes of Richard Mahony, Australian Literary Studies, vol 18 (3), May 1998, pp 219–27.