- Born
- 23 December 1874
Jagtvejen, Copenhagen, Denmark - Died
- 11 October 1969
Lindisfarne, Tasmania, Australia
Summary
Bjelke-Peterson was born near Copenhagen, Denmark, and came to Australia with her family in 1891, settling in Hobart. The next year her brothers established the Bjelke-Petersen Physical Culture School, with Marie working as an instructor, though she was eventually forced to leave due to illness. She began writing, publishing some early stories in the Sydney press in the mid-1910s before her first novel, The Mysterious Stranger, came out in 1913. Another 11 novels followed, all works of romance with evangelical Christian overtones and diverse Australian settings. Popular overseas as well as in Australia, her novels are reported to have sold more than 250,000 copies, with several translated into different languages and one, Jewelled Nights (1924), adapted for the cinema. She was awarded the King's Jubilee Medal for fiction in 1935.