Among her papers are many unpublished novels and an autobiographical compilation, which form a notable collection for scholars to evaluate both gender identities and mental health in her era.

Within six months of her birth, Palmer's parents had returned to their native Australia, setting up their home in the Dandenong Ranges, near Melbourne.

Having not wanted to leave, Palmer separated from her parents in France, contacted her friend Isabel Brown, who worked in the communist circles in London, and joined a British medical unit.

[7][8] Working on the battle front from August 1936 to the middle of 1938, Palmer rode with ambulance drivers and kept records of the wounded, sending injury and death reports to the central war office.

[9] During the Battle of Brunete, fighting was intense and the field hospital was close to the action, which led Palmer to feel depressed and unstable.

[10] Though her parents urged her to remain in England, Palmer returned to Spain the following month, where she joined the 35th Hospital Division in Aragon.

[12] She worked for the National Joint Committee for Spanish Relief[8] through 1939, distributing leaflets, carrying out publicity events, and attending rallies.

[14][Notes 1] When the war ended, Palmer went to France and worked in the refugee camps, writing reports on the Spanish people.

[1] In 1945, responding to a cable from her sister regarding her mother's stroke, Palmer returned to Melbourne,[1] though she had to say goodbye to a woman who her diary indicates she was in love with.

[23] In 1957, she published a mimeographed collection of poems called Dear Life[21] and that same year, travelled as a peace activist to both China and Japan.

Around the same time, Helen called a piece, Song for a Distant Epoch, published by Meanjin incoherent, when in reality it was a modernist lament on the threat of nuclear annihilation.

Because of her lengthy periods of institutionalisation, she refers to her lesbian alliances as "incidents", thus it is difficult to determine if she had a genuine desire, or if her own thoughts had been moulded by therapy.

[29] In some versions, as in her letters, Palmer employs an alter-ego known as Moira Y. Pilgrim, but it is difficult to determine if one is a fictional character or another manifestation of herself.

[33] In her own writings, she recounts symptoms like those described by people with posttraumatic stress disorder, obsessing over the deaths she encountered in Spain and bombings in London.

[34] It is equally possible that the "drivel" burned by her sister Helen, were writings attempting to deal with the traumas Palmer had experienced in her life.