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Couvreur, Jessie (1848 - 1897)

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    A Sydney Sovereign and Other Tales
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Born
28 October 1848
Highgate, England
Died
23 October 1897
Brussels, Belgium
Alternative Names
  • Tasma (pseudonym)

Summary

Couvreur was born in Highgate, London, coming to Tasmania with her family in the early 1850s. Her first marriage was a failure and she instituted divorce proceedings against her husband in 1883. With her second husband, a Belgian journalist and politician, she led a cosmopolitan life in Europe, later working as the Brussels correspondent of the Times newspaper. She began to publish stories in Australian periodicals in 1877 under the pseudonym 'Tasma'; the collection of stories, A Sydney Sovereign and Other Tales, was published in 1889, reprinting stories originally published in the Australasian. The best-known of her six novels, Uncle Piper of Piper's Hill (1889), was published to acclaim in both Australia and England.

Published resources

Books

  • Tasma, Uncle Piper of Piper's Hill : an Australian novel, Trübner & Co, London, 1889, 348 pp. Details
  • Tasma, In her earliest youth, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., London, 1890, 349 pp. Details
  • Tasma, A Sydney Sovereign and Other Tales, Trübner & Co, London, 1890, 219 pp. Details
  • Tasma, The penance of Portia James, William Heinemann, London, 1891, 293 pp. Details
  • Tasma, A knight of the white feather, William Heinemann, London, 1893, 311 pp. Details
  • Tasma, Not counting the cost, D. Appleton & Co., New York, 1895, 460 pp. Details

Short Stories

  • "Tasma", 'Concerning the Forthcoming Melbourne Cup', in Hopkins, F. R. C (ed.), The Australian Ladies' Annual, M'Carron, Bird & Co., Melbourne, 1878, pp. 73-81. Details
  • "Tasma", 'The Rubria Ghost', in Hopkins, F. R. C (ed.), The Australian Ladies' Annual, M'Carron, Bird & Co., Melbourne, 1878, pp. 1-12. Details
  • Tasma, 'Monsieur Caloche', in Mennell, Philip (ed.), In Australian wilds, and other colonial tales and sketches, Hutchinson, London, 1889, pp. 77-107. Details
  • Tasma, 'A Sydney Sovereign', in A Sydney Sovereign and Other Tales, Trübner & Co, London, 1890, pp. 1-122. Details
  • Tasma, 'How a Claim Was Nearly Jumped in Gum-Tree Gully', in A Sydney Sovereign and Other Tales, Trübner & Co, London, 1890, pp. 123-144. Details
  • Tasma, 'Barren Love', in A Sydney Sovereign and Other Tales, Trübner & Co, London, 1890, pp. 145-168. Details
  • Tasma, 'A Philanthropist's Experiment', in A Sydney Sovereign and Other Tales, Trübner & Co, London, 1890, pp. 169-187. Details
  • Tasma, 'Monsieur Caloche', in A Sydney Sovereign and Other Tales, Trübner & Co, London, 1890, pp. 188-216. Details
  • Tasma, 'An Old-Time Episode in Tasmania', in Martin, Mrs Patchett (ed.), Coo-ee : tales of Australian life, by Australian ladies, Griffith Farran Okeden & Welsh, London, 1891?, pp. 1-32. Details

See also

Archival resources

National Library of Australia Manuscript Collection

  • Papers of Jessie Couvreur (Tasma), 1873-1891 [manuscript], 1873 - 1891, MS Acc08/105; National Library of Australia Manuscript Collection. Details

Rachael Weaver

Created: 19 July 2007, Last modified: 10 June 2015