[4] Coming from a family of farmers, Charles Queale acquired a veterinarian's certificate and took up a position in the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Stock.

[7] Before marrying, Alice worked in the public service and joined the Queensland labour movement, in which she met Anderson's father, Charles.

For the benefit of their children's schooling, the Queale family moved from Gayndah to the Brisbane suburb of Annerley when Anderson was five years old.

[14] In spite of these efforts, Anderson's slight stammer was to stay with her for the rest of her life; several observers commented that the impediment lent her speech a careful and deliberate air.

Suffering from chronic bronchitis and emphysema, and having survived diphtheria and typhoid fever, her father's illness is a pall that hangs over many of the tales in Stories from the Warm Zone, and his death was undoubtedly a "bitter blow" to the young girl and her siblings.

[20] Despite the fact that she spent her childhood in Queensland, she stated in interviews that she felt more affinity with Sydney, the city where she was to spend the bulk of her adult life.

"[22] In a city still recovering from the ravages of The Great Depression, life for Anderson was not altogether easy: "Times were very hard," she recalled; "People were poor, but very free.

Beginning with half-hour slots, Anderson gradually became interested in the technique of crafting radio plays, and began submitting some of her better work to the ABC under her own name.

[25] Meanwhile, her husband, McGill, worked as a layout artist for Lever Brothers Agency, while continuing to paint in his spare time.

[25] While some critics have proffered this stint in England as evidence of the semi-autobiographical nature of Tirra Lirra by the River, Anderson rejected such claims, asserting that, while all of her characters had something of her in them, none were entirely autobiographical.

[citation needed] More comfortable financial circumstances following her second marriage allowed her to fulfil her lifelong intention to write a novel.

Although it began life as a radio play, Anderson quickly found that An Ordinary Lunacy was "interesting enough for a novel, so I went off, and it got quite out of hand.

"[22] The novel detailed the romance between thirty-five-year-old Sydney barrister, David Byfield, and Isobel Purdy, a woman accused of murdering her husband.

Pam Gilbert writes that "Anderson's construction of the tensions existing between three women such as Daisy, Isobel and Myra offers an interesting platform for an exposition of romance and passion from a woman's perspective.

[30] It was taken up by Macmillan Publishers in London, and by Scribner in New York, and although it was not a great commercial success, it received a good deal of positive critical feedback.

She maintained that this unpublished work merited publication, and suggested that it had been "rejected at a time when sex was new in writing and everything had to be strongly sexual or violent.

[35] Like An Ordinary Lunacy, The Last Man's Head features a number of female characters who test the limits of their social roles, if not outright rebelling against them.

[39] Anderson once playfully likened the Moreton Bay social climate to Elizabeth Gaskell's Cranford; Susan Sheridan notes that the likeness is particularly true of the discord between the elegant gentility of the middle-class, and the cruelty of the penal colony.

[40] As was the case with The Last Man's Head, Anderson and many critics felt that publishers packaged The Commandant inappropriately, making it look like a "Regency romance."

[44] Nora uses the "spinning globe," her equivalent of the Lady of Shalott's "crystal mirror," to explore the various stages and facets of her life, and to conceal some of its more unsavoury aspects from herself, and from the reader.

[48] Renamed The Only Daughter for publication in the United States, the novel details Sylvia Foley's return to Australia after having lived in England for twenty years.

[49] Having come to the conclusion that worldly possessions and marriage are the main stumbling blocks to achieving freedom, Sylvia returns to find each of her Australian relatives bound by both constraints, making them "impersonators.

When Beth discovers that she is pregnant, she and Marcus settle into a house owned by Juliet McCracken, who calls herself Miles' "spare old godmother.

"[52] In fact, Juliet performs the role of fairy-godmother to a number characters in the novel, including Beth and Marcus; Elaine Barry suggests that this, along with Anderson's "use of coincidence, dreams, [and a] superficially happy ending," makes Taking Shelter "almost a parody of popular romantic fiction.

[53] In addition to its adept depiction of the intricacies of social and family life, One of the Wattle Birds speaks to the process of writing and creating, as Cecily is herself a writer.

[56] He suggests that each of these women was constrained largely by material circumstances, including "the demands of family and work, lack of financial independence, an indifferent publishing environment.

"[57] He suggests that, as well as adverse material circumstances, Anderson's career was delayed, and her success mitigated by modesty and a certain "diffidence regarding her gifts.

I almost wished I had kept writing under a pseudonym as I had begun…[60]In spite of her late start, Anderson's career as a novelist spanned three decades during which she produced eight critically acclaimed works.