Australia Felix

by Henry Handel Richardson

"Australia Felix" by Henry Handel Richardson is a novel published in 1917. It follows Dr. Richard Mahony, an educated Irishman running a store in the Australian goldfields near Ballarat during the 1850s. Disillusioned with colonial life, he pursues medicine and marries young Polly Turnham, who helps build his practice. As success grows, so does Mahony's restlessness and longing to escape Australia. This opening volume traces their early struggles, family entanglements, and the tensions between ambition and belonging in a raw frontier society.