Dulcie Deamer

Portrait photo

Mary Elizabeth Kathleen Dulcie Deamer (13 December 1890 – 16 August 1972) was an Australian novelist, poet, journalist and actor. She was a founder and a committee member of the Fellowship of Australian Writers.

Life

She was born in Christchurch, New Zealand, daughter of George Edwin Deamer, a physician from Lincolnshire, and his New Zealand-born wife, Mable Reader. Dulcie Dreamer was taught at home by her mother, who had been a governess.

Dulcie Dreamer was known as the "Queen of Bohemia" due to her involvement with Norman Lindsay's literary and artistic circle, the Bohemian world of Kings Cross, Sydney, and vaudeville.

Dreamer died at the Little Sisters of the Poor, Randwick, New South Wales, aged 81. Her daughter, the theologian Rosemary Goldie, died there as well, three decades later.

Works

Novels

• The Suttee of Safa (New York, 1913)
• Revelation (London, 1921)
• The Street of the Gazelle (London, 1922)
• The Devil's Saint (London, 1924)
• Holiday (1940)

Plays

• That by which Men Live (1936)
• Victory (1938)

Poetry

• Messalina (1932)
• The Silver Branch (1948)

Sources

• Adelaide, Debra (1988) Australian women writers: a bibliographic guide (London: Pandora)

External links

• Australian Dictionary of Biography entry