Mary Gaunt was an independent woman and suffragist, interested above all in what she called the "improper desire" to travel. She became an expatriate at the age of forty, but her earlier years were spent living in Gippsland, in Victorian country towns and around the goldfields. As a writer she was both prolific and challenging, contributing to the growing reputation of Australian women writers. While many of her books draw on overseas travel--to China, Africa, and Jamaica--some of her works are based in Australia and have important comments to make on the Australian way of life. All concern the controversial question of the rights of individual women to independence and equality.

Mary Eliza Bakewell Gaunt, always called Minnie by her family, was born on 20 February 1861 at Indigo, Chiltern, Victoria, a small town not far from the Murray River border. Her father, William Henry Gaunt, born on 27 July 1830 at...