A Private and Secular Grief: Katharine Susannah Prichard Confronts Death and Bereavement

Katharine Susannah Prichard’s experiences of death and bereavement are revealing about one extraordinary woman’s way of coping with the tragic deaths by suicide of her father and her husband. She represents her age in having to confront both World Wars, the inter-war depression, and the loss of her Christian faith. She responded to the suicides of her beloved father and husband with courage, independence and inner strength. Her own creative and positive philosophy of secular grieving was expressed through her work, through memory, and poetry and rarely discussed with anyone except her son, Ric Throssell. This article has been peer-reviewed.