The Australian Women's Register

Praed was the third child of Thomas Lodge Murray-Prior and Matilda Harpur, niece of poet Charles Harpur. Murray-Prior established a pastoral station in Queensland where he became a member of the Legislative Council and served as Post-Master General to three Prime Ministers during the latter half of the 19th century. Her father’s political career in Queensland exposed Rosa to political discourses and the social world of the colony. These experiences were often reflected in her later books. She was educated at home by her mother and private tutors. She married on 29 October 1872 at St John’s Church of England, Brisbane. Within a few weeks of their marriage, Arthur Praed took Rosa to his cattle station, Monte Christo, situated on Curtis Island, off the Queensland coast between Gladstone and Rockhampton. Rosa was glad to leave behind the lonely existence on Curtis Island to travel to England with her husband.

In 1882 Praed published Nadine, an intense psychological study drawing on the life of Olga Novikoff. She collaborated on four books with the Irish politician Justin McCarthy, who wrote voluminously to her on the progress of the Home Rule debate of the 1880s. She edited these letters as Our Book of Memories (1912). Her talents also extended to writing a dramatic play, Ariane, based on her novel, The Bond of Wedlock (1887). This ran for 100 performances in London’s West End in 1888.

Rosa separated from her husband in 1897 and began living with a psychic medium, Nancy Harward. Much of her later fiction, some of which was written with Harward, reflects her devout belief in the supernatural. Her work includes acute analyses of the colonial mentality, especially of society women, whilst historical events and personages often supply background and characters for her novels. Rosa moved to Devon with Harward in the early 1920s and lived there until her death.