Mary Gaunt


Mary Eliza Bakewell Gaunt was an Australian novelist, born in Chiltern, Victoria. She also wrote collections of short stories, novellas, autobiographies, and non-fiction. She published her first novel Dave's Sweetheart in 1894. Gaunt visited many countries in her life and she wrote about her experiences in five travel books.

Early life and education

Mary was the elder daughter of William Henry Gaunt, a Victorian county court judge and Elizabeth Gaunt, née Palmer, 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 be admitted there.

Career

In 1894 she married Hubert Lindsay Miller and published her first novel. A year after her husband's death in 1900, Gaunt went to London. Gaunt left Melbourne on 15 March 1901 and never returned.
A collection of interviews with Mary were published in the 1925 Girls' Own Annual under the headings "Pioneering for Women" parts I, II, and III, and "Strange Journeys I Have Made".
From the early 1920s, Gaunt lived mostly at Bordighera, Italy. In 1940 she fled Italy and died at Cannes in 1942. She had no children.
She had a sister Lucy, and brothers Cecil, Clive, Lancelot, Guy and Ernest; Guy and Ernest were both admirals of the Royal Navy, and Guy later became a Conservative Member of Parliament. All five brothers served in The Great War.
Gaunt was posthumously inducted onto the Victorian [Honour Roll of Women] in 2002.

Novels