Mary Gaunt

Who was Mary Gaunt?

Mary Eliza Bakewell Gaunt was an Australian novelist.

Mary was the eldest daughter of William Henry Gaunt, a Victorian county court judge, and was born in Chiltern, Victoria. She was educated at Grenville College, Ballarat and the University of Melbourne, being one of the first two women students to enroll there. She began writing for the press and in 1894 published her first novel Dave's Sweetheart. In the same year she married Dr Hubert Lindsay Miller of Warrnambool, Victoria. He died in 1900, and, with only a small income, Gaunt went to London intending to earn a living by her writing. Gaunt left Melbourne on 15 March 1901.

Gaunt 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, A Woman in China, A Broken Journey, Where the Twain Meet, Reflection - in Jamaica. 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.