Mary Gaunt

Kirkham's Find (Dodo Press) Mary Gaunt

Mary Eliza Bakewell Gaunt (1861-1942) was an Australian novelist. She was educated at Grenville College and the University of Melbourne, where she was one of the first two women students to enroll. She began writing for the press and in 1894 published her first novel Dave's Sweetheart. After her husband's death she went to London intending to live by her pen. She had difficulties at first but eventually established herself, and was able to travel in the West Indies, in West Africa, and in China and other parts of the East. Her experiences were recorded in five pleasantly written travel books: Alone in West Africa (1912), A Woman in China (1914), A Broken Journey (1919), Where the Twain Meet (1922), Reflection - in Jamaica (1932). In 1929 she also published George Washington and the Men Who Made the American Revolution. Between 1895 and 1934, 16 novels or collections of short stories were published, mostly with love and adventure interests.