Join local author Rosalie Horner as she discusses her first historical novel Waltzing Mathilde: Letters to a Little Girl.

Waltzing Mathilde: Letters to a Little Girl is based on the true story of Rosalie's grandmother, Mathilde Plate, who aged 12, travelled solo to Australia from Germany in 1890 to live with her uncle, the propsperous art dealer Willy Aldenhoven and his family.

Music and letters from Germany help Mathilde endure a life of drudgery, isolation and family tragedy as she navigates the darker side of Sydney’s art world. On Mathilde’s death in 1964, a batch of these letters were found at her Mosman home.

Rosalie Horner was a Fleet Street journalist and London theatre and television critic. She has written two non-fiction books, Inside BBC Television and Great TV Entertainment. At Melbourne University she studied Fine Arts and took part in student theatre, later she became a presenter on ABC Television. Rosalie made her home in London for many years. and in 2018 she returned to live permanently in Mosman. Rosalie loves to delve into the past to discover what it tells us about life today, leading to her first historical Novel Waltzing Mathilde: Letters to a Little Girl; and she is already working on another Australian Historical Novel.