This site will look much better in a browser that supports web standards, but it is accessible to any browser or Internet device.

State Library of South Australia logo

Searching the bibliography

This online bibliography (634 KB) is searchable by keyword as suggested below. Under the EDIT menu option on your browser, select FIND IN PAGE, or simply hit the CONTROL key and F (Windows) or COMMAND key and F (Macintosh).

Download the Spence bibliography as a Word document of around 120 pages, or as an Adobe Acrobat PDF file (requires free Acrobat reader).

Searching tips

  • keywords
  • biographical material
  • book reviews

The bibliography has around 2,130 entries listed in chronological order, and the entries usually have the following parts in this order:-

  • year of publication
  • month and a day, if the entry is from a newspaper or periodical
  • title of the item
  • source of the item, if from a newspaper or periodical, and its page and column number
  • a descriptive note in square brackets, if there is additional information about the item.

The compiler's notes explain in more detail the arrangement and scope of the entries. They look at the sources used to compile the bibliography and explains the provenance of the entries, including anonymous writings and pseudonyms. The three series Spence wrote are detailed.

Keywords

The main information about each item appears in the title and descriptive note which can be searched by keyword. Spence's range of interests, and therefore the strengths of the bibliography, are indicated by an attached list of keywords. There is also a list of some commonly occurring personal names, friends and family who are mentioned and organisations about which Spence wrote, and names of significant authors who wrote about her.

The major biographical items can be found through a keyword search under the following terms:

  • 'Autobiography'—used as the title of the work which Spence commenced in her last year and which was completed after her death. It is used also to draw attention to autobiographical material which appears in articles which she wrote or speeches which she gave about other topics.
  • 'Biographical material'—used for other material about Spence, especially for material that records her activities but does not contain her words.
  • 'Biography'—used for books and articles which record her life or aspects of her life.
  • 'Obituary' or 'Tribute'—used to draw attention to items of special biographical significance, referring to her death or praising aspects of her life.
  • 'Biographical fragment'—used when the items are slight, perhaps merely noting her attendance at a function, or travel to a destination, or commenting briefly on her activities.

There are two types of book review searches which can be done.

  • If you are searching for a specific book reviewed by Spence, type the title of the book or the author as a keyword search.
  • If you are looking for reviews of Spence���s own work, search on the keyword 'reviewed'.

Keywords

This is not a complete list of words in the bibliography, but includes the more commonly used and useful words to search. You can truncate a keyword search eg Canad* will retrieve Canada and Canadian.

acrostic acting charade agriculture America
Australia Australian children's literature Australian literature Autobiography
biographical material boarding-out Canada, Canadian centenary
charade charity children children's literature
clothing factory Commonwealth delinquency democratic ideal
destitute domestic servants domestic violence drink
education effective voting electoral reform enigma
epilep* to search for epileptics or epilepsy federal convention federation finance
gambling game government grand old woman
health history Hare House of Lords
illness insurance Japan kindergarten
labour law literary literary frivolities
literature marriage memorial Northern Territory
palindrome politics population portrait
poverty prison* to search prisons and prisoners proportional representation prostitution
public speaking pure democracy puzzle religion
representation royal commission scholarship school
social aspects social issues social problems spelling game
Spence scholarship Spence memorial suffrage tax*
teacher travels truancy Unitarian
United States violence welfare woman
women women writers    

Personal names

This is not a complete list of personal names referred to, but includes the more commonly used and well known names. You need only type in the surname, which is the last name shown. The names are listed in the form Spence used.

Susan Brownell Anthony Marie Bashkirtseff Elizabeth Barrett Browning Robert Browning
Robert Burns Jane Welsh Carlyle Thomas Carlyle Jane Hume Clapperton
Richard Cobden Mrs George Craik Alphonse Daudet Daniel Defoe
Robert Dick Charles Dickens Georg Ebers Maria Edgeworth
George Eliot Henry Fielding Archibald Forbes Charles James Fox
Henry George Edward Gibbon George Gissing Oliver Goldsmith
Vida Goldstein Richard John Green Richard Hanson J. A. Hartley
Matthew Davenport Hill Kate Hood David Hume Samuel Johnson
Helen Keller Henry Kendall Lord Lytton Justin McCarthy
Lord Macauley Catherine Martin Frederick Martin Harriet Martineau
Mary Russell Mitford Agnes Milne Lucy Spence Morice Dinah Maria Mulock
Professor E. J. Nanson Professor C. H. Pearson Dante Gabriel Rossetti George Sand
Sir Walter Scott Professor Seeley Percy Bysshe Shelley Professor Henry J. S. Smith
Robert Southey Herbert Spencer A. W. Stirling Alfred Tennyson
William Makepeace Thackeray Tourgenief (Turgenev) Anthony Trollope Booker Washington
Mrs H. Zadow      

Friends and family who are mentioned

Vida Goldstein Alice Henry Kate Hood Lucy Spence Morice
Rose Scott Helen Brodie Spence John Brodie Spence Jeanne Young, Jeanne F. Young, Mrs A. H. Young

Organisations

This is not a complete list of organisations referred to, but includes those with which Spence was connected.

Criminological Society Destitute Commission District Trained Nursing Society Kindergarten Union
National Council of Women Royal Commission State Children's Council Woman's League
Woman's Suffrage League Women's Christian Temperance Union Women's League Women's Non-Party Political Organization

Writers about Spence and editors of her work

This is a list of the editors and writers of significant publications about Spence who have contributed substantially to our knowledge of her. It is not a complete list of the authors of those items not written by Spence herself, since many are anonymous.

From the compiler's introduction "I have added the books by Janet Cooper, Susan Magarey and Helen Jones which have in recent times made her life and work known to the general community, and also included a number of articles which have made significant new contributions to our knowledge of her life and work. I have not included articles on, or references to, Spence in recent feminist, political and literary publications. These are readily available on other databases."

Carl Bridge Janet Cooper Susan Eade Charles James Fox
Judy King Helen Jones Lesley Durrell Ljungdahl Susan Magarey
John Ramsland Helen Thomson Graham Tulloch B. L. Waters
G. A. Wilkes