The Getting of Wisdom, a wicked and satirical novel on the pain and confusing of growing up, first appeared in 1910. A century later it has lost none of its bite.

One of the most memorable characters in Australian fiction, Laura Rambotham, aged twelve, enters the portals of an exclusive girls' school eager to be accepted. But this precocious country girl is snubbed and ridiculed by her fellow students, who are richer, more attractive and more adept at dealing with life's hypocrisies.

In her splendid introduction Germaine Greer describes this classic as 'Richardson's only great book precisely because the subject is, like the rest of us, ordinary, and therefore deeply important'.

'The Getting of Wisdom races ahead of the reader, succeeding by force of narrative and sheer charm...spontaneity and skill; the values of a whole society are seen here in microcosm through the lives of pupils and teachers.' New Statesman