author
Marie Bjelke Petersen
1874–1969
A Danish-born Australian novelist and pioneering physical culture teacher, she became known for popular romances set largely in Tasmania’s rural and mining landscapes. Her books offered readers a vivid, often unconventional vision of Australian life in the early 20th century.
2 Audiobooks
The immortal flame
by Marie Bjelke Petersen
The captive singer
by Marie Bjelke Petersen
About the author
Born near Copenhagen on December 23, 1874, she migrated with her family to Tasmania in the early 1890s and built an unusually independent life for a woman of her era. Before gaining fame as a novelist, she worked as a physical culture teacher, helping lead classes for women and girls at her family’s school in Hobart.
Between 1917 and 1937, she published nine romance novels. Many were set in Australia, especially Tasmania, and blended love stories with bush, mining, and rural settings. Her fiction stood out for its energetic heroines and for themes that could feel bold for the time.
She died in Tasmania on October 11, 1969. Today she is remembered both as a once widely read popular author and as a figure connected to early women’s physical education in Australia.