Richard Handley tells the courageous story of Louisa Lawson, a leader in the fight for women's rights and a significant character in Australian history. He highlights the great courage she showed in coping with her problems and the determination and fighting spirit in confronting male chauvinism and the subjugation of women in nineteenth century Australia. Louisa emerges as the foremost feminist writer of her day and as a gifted poet.

In the past, her reputation has suffered and her importance ignored, with the biographers of Henry Lawson, her son, painting her as a careless, uncaring and sexually repressed wife.

Richard Handley's That Mad Louisa has addressed that situation, highlighting her championing of women's welfare and equality, her Australian patriotism, her inventiveness, publishing and journalistic qualities and her charitable works.

There are some surprising revelations about Louisa and her family: illegitimate children, tragic premature deaths, police actions and court proceedings, drunkenness and violence, bouts of insanity and committals to lunatic asylums, all set against a background of nineteenth century values.

Richard Handley has put a persuasive case in a must-read book for Louisa Lawson to be recognized as the most important figure in the history of the feminist cause, a truly remarkable woman.