author
M. L. (Mary Louisa) Skinner
1876–1955
A Western Australian nurse-turned-novelist, she is best remembered for The Boy in the Bush, the 1924 novel she developed from her own manuscript and published in collaboration with D. H. Lawrence. Her life moved between Australia, Britain, India, and Europe, and that wide experience found its way into her fiction.
1 Audiobook
The Boy in the Bush
by D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence, M. L. (Mary Louisa) Skinner
About the author
Born in Perth in 1876, Mary Louisa "Mollie" Skinner spent parts of her early life in Britain and later trained in nursing before working as a midwife and hospital sister. She lived for periods in India and Europe, and eventually returned to Western Australia, where she continued to write.
Skinner published novels, short stories, and autobiographical writing, often drawing on places she had known firsthand. She is most closely associated with The Boy in the Bush, a novel linked with D. H. Lawrence that grew from her manuscript The House of Ellis and brought her lasting literary recognition.
Though never a widely famous figure, she remains an interesting voice in Australian literature: a working nurse, traveler, and writer whose books carry a strong sense of movement, landscape, and lived experience.