Author: Freda Marnie Nicholls

Freda Marnie Nicholls is an Australian writer, former journalist, and farmer whose nonfiction grew from archival investigation and family testimony. The Amazing Mrs Livesey reconstructs the life of Ethel Livesey, a prolific impostor whose many aliases, marriages, social reinventions, and public deceptions made her a striking figure in Australian history. Allen & Unwin published the biography in 2016, and the research was prompted by contact with Livesey’s granddaughter. Nicholls followed documentary traces through newspapers, legal records, photographs, and personal accounts, turning a scattered record into a chronological narrative. An ABC interview places the author on a sheep property in New South Wales and explains how her journalistic background supported the investigation. The Amazing Mrs Livesey is not simply a list of assumed identities. It examines the skill, nerve, and social conditions that allowed repeated reinvention, while retaining the voices of people drawn into Livesey’s schemes. Nicholls’s method combines storytelling with the patient reconstruction of an elusive life, giving readers the evidence and the consequences for families caught within the deception.