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  • Published: 1 July 2008
  • ISBN: 9781741667622
  • Imprint: Vintage Australia
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 256
  • RRP: $14.99

We Of The Never-Never




The 100th year anniversary of this well loved Australian Classic.

In 1902, newly-married Jeannie Gunn (Mrs Aeneas Gunn) left the security and comfort of her Melbourne home to travel to the depths of the Northern Territory, where her husband had been appointed manager of ‘The Elsey’, a large cattle station. One of the very few white women in the area, she was at first resented by people on and around the station, till her warmth and spirit won their affection and respect.
She had an unerring ear and eye for the sounds and sights of the country; and this is her moving and simple account of her life amidst the beauty and cruelty of the land, and the isolation and loneliness - together with the comradeship and kindness of those around her.
The favourite of generations of Australians since it was first published in 1908, We of the Never-Never can truly be called a classic.

  • Published: 1 July 2008
  • ISBN: 9781741667622
  • Imprint: Vintage Australia
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 256
  • RRP: $14.99

About the author

Aeneas Gunn

Jeannie Gunn OBE (5 June 1870 – 9 June 1961) was an Australian teacher and novelist who used the pen name Mrs Aeneas Gunn. After her marriage to Aeneas James Gunn in 1901, she travelled from her home in Melbourne to a remote Northern Territory cattle station, Elsey, where her husband was to be manager. Tragically her husband died in 1903 and she returned to Melbourne where she began writing novels.

The Little Black Princess: a True Tale of life in the Never-Never Land was published in 1905 and chronicled the childhood of an Indigeous Australian, Bett-Bett, living at Elsey station. We of the Never Never followed in 1908 and is an autobiographical novel recounting her experiences living at Elsey. By 1945, We of the Never Never had sold over 300,000 copies.

During and after World War I she worked tirelessly to support the servicemen of Monbulk, Victoria who she referred to as “my boys”. She was awarded an OBE in 1939 “in recognition of her services to Australian Literature and to the disabled soldiers and their dependents”. The memoirs of her work with the RSL, My Boys: A book of remembrance, was published in 2000.