Rosman, Alice Grant (1887–1961)

Australian novelist. Name variations: (pseudonym) Rosna. Born in Dreamthorpe, Kapunda, South Australia, in 1887; died in 1961; daughter of Alice Mary (Bowyer) Rosman (a poet); attended the Dominican Convent in Cabra, South Australia.

Selected writings:

Miss Bryde of England (1916); The Tower Wall (1917); The Back Seat Driver (1928); The Window (1928); Visitors to Hugo (1929); The Young and Secret (1930); Jock the Scot (1930); The Sixth Journey (1931); Benefits Received (1932); Protecting Margot (1933); Somebody Must (1934); The Sleeping Child (1935); Mother of the Bride (1936); Unfamiliar Faces (1938); William's Room (1939); Nine Lives: A Cat of London in Peace and War (1941).

Alice Grant Rosman was born in South Australia in 1887, and attended the Dominican Convent in Cabra. She was still a child when she began writing stories, a passion she shared with her mother Alice Mary Bowyer Rosman , who published a verse collection entitled An Enchanted Garden in 1916. Rosman's first short story was published in the Adelaide Southern Cross, and her work appeared in Aunt Eily's Christmas Annual in 1902, when she was just 15 years old. Her sketches, stories, and poems were later featured in Australian anthologies, newspapers, and magazines including the Native Companion, the Lone Hand, and the Gadfly, as well as in the Adelaide Bulletin, for which she wrote from 1908 to 1911 under the name "Rosna."

In 1911, Rosman traveled with her family to London for the coronation of King George V. She remained in England and joined the literary staff of the British Australasian (also referred to as the British Australian and New Zealander) and the editorial staff of the Grand Magazine. In 1927, however, she relinquished her journalism positions to concentrate on her novel writing.

Rosman quickly earned international acclaim for her novels. The Window (1928) sold 100,000 copies. Visitors to Hugo (1929), which sensitively combined a psychiatric setting with humor, firmly established her reputation and became the standard by which her subsequent works were judged. Rosman was the author of over 15 novels, the best of which have been described as "domestic romances in comfortable households."

sources:

Kunitz, Stanley J., and Howard Haycraft, eds. Twentieth Century Authors. NY: H.W. Wilson, 1942.

Wilde, William H., Joy Hooten, and Barry Andrews. The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature. Melbourne, Australia: Oxford University Press, 1985.

Lisa S. Weitzman , freelance writer, Cleveland, Ohio