Langley, Eve (1908–1974)

Australian writer . Born in Forbes, New South Wales in 1908; died in 1974; married Hilary Clark (an artist and art teacher); children: three.

Born in 1908 in New South Wales, writer Eve Langley moved to New Zealand in 1932, married and had three children. She subsequently returned to Australia where for some time she led a seemingly conventional life and was active in Sydney's literary circles. In later life, however, Langley turned reclusive, moving to the deserted bush near Katoomba in the Blue Mountains and residing in a shack she dubbed "Iona-Lympus." Adopting Oscar Wilde as an alter ego, she dressed as a man, wore a white topi, carried a knife in her belt, and became obsessed with guns. Langley is best remembered for her sequential novels, The Pea Pickers (1942) and White Topee (1954), the first of which was praised by Douglas Stewart as "the most delightful novel" ever written by an Australian. The books center on the protagonist-narrator Steve, who struggles to reconcile her intellectual need for freedom of thought and expression with her emotional need for a fulfilling relationship. Not until the end of White Topee does she finally come to grips with her conflicted psyche: "I really didn't want to be loved," she concludes. "What I really wanted was to be a man, and free for ever to write and think and dream." Langley's personal life remains a mystery, although it is assumed that her own struggles were not as clearly resolved as those of her literary protagonist.