Australian poet and journalist Zora Cross caused a sensation in 1917
with her book Songs of Love and Life. Here was a young woman, who
looked like a Sunday school teacher, celebrating sexual passion in a
provocative series of sonnets. She was hailed as a genius, and many
expected her to endure as a household name alongside Shakespeare and
Rossetti. While Cross's fame didn't last, she kept writing through
financial hardship, personal tragedies and two world wars, producing a
remarkable body of work. Her verse, prose and correspondence with the
likes of Ethel Turner, George Robertson (of Angus & Robertson) and Mary
Gilmore place Zora Cross among the key personalities of Australia's
literary world in the early twentieth century. The Shelf Life of Zora
Cross draws on these rich sources to reveal the life of a neglected
writer and intriguing person.