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Nobody’s Valentine: Letters in the life of Valentine Alexa Leeper 1900–2001 by Marion Poynter

by
February 2009, no. 308

Nobody’s Valentine: Letters in the life of Valentine Alexa Leeper 1900–2001 by Marion Poynter

Miegunyah, $59.99 hb, 464 pp

Nobody’s Valentine: Letters in the life of Valentine Alexa Leeper 1900–2001 by Marion Poynter

by
February 2009, no. 308

Valentine Alexa Leeper: it’s a name to conjure with. The daughter of the first warden of the University of Melbourne’s Trinity College, Alexander Leeper, she was christened ‘Valentine’ because she was born on 14 February. No name could have been less appropriate: she was to prove a committed spinster. She was remarkable for a number of reasons, not least of which was that her life spanned an entire century. Born in 1900, she survived into the twenty-first century. Although her life experience might have appeared narrow and confined (she never travelled abroad, for example) Valentine had the advantage of growing up in a university environment and was possessed of a formidable intellect; her interests were wide and she was active in many organisations, ranging from the League of Nations Union to the Victorian Aboriginal Group.

John Rickard reviews 'Nobody’s Valentine: Letters in the life of Valentine Alexa Leeper 1900–2001' by Marion Poynter

Nobody’s Valentine: Letters in the life of Valentine Alexa Leeper 1900–2001

by Marion Poynter

Miegunyah, $59.99 hb, 464 pp

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