Episode 3219
Mary Fortune
Thu, 2026-Feb-26 00:19 UTC
Length - 3:06
Direct Link
Welcome to featured Wiki of the Day, your daily dose of knowledge from Wikipedia's finest articles.
The featured article for Thursday, 26 February 2026, is Mary Fortune.
Mary Helena Fortune (29 July 1832 – 9 November 1911) was an Australian author and journalist who was one of the earliest female writers of detective fiction. A prolific pseudonymous writer of fiction, poetry, and journalism, she contributed chiefly to The Australian Journal. Her best-known work, The Detective's Album, comprised more than 500 short stories published in the journal between 1868 and 1908. Fortune's writing was characterised by its unsparing portrayals of colonial society and urban Melbourne, including the prevalence of violence and the treatment of women.
Born in Ireland, Fortune moved to Canada as a child and travelled to Australia with her son in 1855, possibly to escape her marriage. She lived in the goldfields settlements that emerged during the Australian gold rushes, where she had another (likely illegitimate) child, entered a short-lived bigamous marriage with a mounted policeman, and may have traded in illegal alcohol. Her early writings, including radical poetry, appeared in local goldfields newspapers. She then became a frequent and longstanding contributor to The Australian Journal after its founding in 1865.
Although best known for her short crime fiction, Fortune also wrote serial novels, poetry, journalism, a memoir, and at least one play. Her work extended beyond crime fiction and included romance, Gothic fiction, and ghost stories. Drawing on her experiences in the goldfields and in Melbourne's rapidly urbanising environment, her writing often criticised colonial society—particularly its treatment of women—and examined the police's failure to address sexual violence and crimes against women.
Despite her popularity as a writer, Fortune experienced alcoholism, poverty, and periods of homelessness throughout her later life. Her surviving son, George Fortune, became a career criminal and spent more than 20 years in prison. Fortune died in 1911 shortly after leaving an asylum. Having written under several pseudonyms, her identity was nearly lost after her death until it was rediscovered by a book collector in the 1950s. Further details of her life have since been uncovered by the historian Lucy Sussex, who has written extensively about Fortune and her work.
This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 00:19 UTC on Thursday, 26 February 2026.
For the full current version of the article, see Mary Fortune on Wikipedia.
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Until next time, I'm standard Justin.
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