Author: MOORE-BENTLEY, Mrs M.A.
Title: An Original Hypothesis of the Origin of Life.
Description: n.p. [Sydney 1917? - some copies are inscribed "Copyright by the Author 1917" ]. Octavo publisher's cloth, titled in gilt on the front cover. [4],202pp including 45 illustrations on 10 leaves numbered 192-201, 202 on verso. Printed from typescript with some ms corrections. Ex theological library - as was the last copy I found - but not offensively so. ¶ Mary Anne Moore-Bentley is perhaps best known as the author of A Woman of Mars, or Australia's Enfranchised Woman (Sydney 1901) which involved a visiting Martian feminist. The complexity of this work precludes me from offering a synopsis; it ranges from the supposition that 'organic life originated from photographic impression' to an investigation of the 'affect of faith upon skin pigment'. An unjustly neglected work? I don't know, but neglected certainly. Mary Ann Moore Bentley, or Mary Ling (her married name), stood for the senate in 1903 - the first year women in New South Wales could vote - and, while she didn't win a seat, she did pretty well for votes. She self published a number of pamphets and polemical books over the years; this is maybe the most ambitious and the oddest.

Keywords: science natural history Australia c20th biology philosophy lunacy polemic feminism