Mary Eliza Fullerton

• Name — Mary Eliza Fullerton • Born — 14 May 1868 • Birthplace — Glenmaggie, Victoria, Australia • Died — 23 February 1946 • Place of death — Maresfield, England • Other Names — "Alpenstock" "Austeal" "E" • Occupation — Author

Fullerton was born on 14 May 1868 in Glenmaggie, Victoria. She attended her local state school and was educated by her mother. After leaving school she stayed on her parents' property, until she moved to Melbourne in her early twenties. She was active in the women's suffrage movement from the 1890s and early 1900s. During World War I she wrote articles on feminist issues and arguing against conscription for Victorian publications. She was a member the Victorian Socialist Party and the Women's Political Association. She visited England in 1912 and moved there in 1922 with her companion Mabel Singleton. Fullerton died in Maresfield, England on 23 February 1946.

She sometimes wrote under the pen name Alpenstock, producing poetry, short fiction, and essays for periodicals. She wrote three novels between 1921 and 1925 under her own name, but fearing prejudice against her as a woman without a university education, publication of her two last works in verse, Moles do so little with their privacy and The wonder and the apple, were published under the pseudonym E. Their publication was arranged by her friend Miles Franklin. Her identity as their author was revealed after her death.

• |Title — |Year — |First published — |Reprinted/collected in • "Emus" — 1944 — The Bulletin, 9 August 1944 — The Wonder and the Apple: More Poems, Angus & Robertson, 1946, p. 1

Letters from Fullerton to family members and correspondence between Fullerton and Miles Franklin are included in the Papers of Alan Wilson and the Wilson Family, that are held in the State Library of Victoria manuscript collection.