Verna Susannah Coleman

Who was Verna Susannah Coleman?

Verna Susannah Coleman was an Australian biographer of international reputation, whose work was characterised by stylish and readable writing, meticulous research, and a gripping narrative skill. She concentrated on neglected aspects of expatriate literary and political figures, and the social, political and literary milieus in which they lived. Her books on novelists Miles Franklin and Frederic Manning, and activist Adela Pankhurst, have proved particularly valuable to scholars of feminist history, and of First World War literature. Her book on Adela Pankhurst is the only biography of this polarising figure, about whom it had been suggested that a biography could never be written.