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Jeannie Gunn (pen name, Mrs Aeneas Gunn) (5 June 18709 June 1961) was an Australian novelist, teacher and Returned and Services League of Australia (RSL) volunteer.
In Melbourne, after being encouraged by friends, she began writing the books for which she would become famous. The Little Black Princess: a True Tale of life in the Never-Never Land, published in 1905 and revised in 1909, chronicled the childhood of an Indigenous Australian protagonist named Bett-Bett. Gunn's second book, We of the Never Never (1908), was styled as a novel but was actually a recounting of her time in the Northern Territory with only the names of people changed to obscure their identities. We of the Never Never sold more than 300,000 copies over thirty years, and was translated into German in the 1920s. In a 1931 poll by Herald Sun (Melbourne) its author was voted the third most popular Australian novelist after Marcus Clarke and Rolf Boldrewood. By 1990, over a million copies of the book had been sold.
During the First World War, Gunn became active in welfare work for Australian servicemen overseas. At the end of the conflict she began campaigning for the welfare of returned servicemen, liaising with government departments and becoming a patron of the Monbulk RSL, attending every event they organised over two decades. Although she never completed another novel, she did publish further stories about the characters from her previous works. In 1939, she was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire.
Jeannie Gunn died at Hawthorn, in 1961. The memoirs of her work with the RSL, My Boys: A Book of Remembrance, was published in 2000.
In 1991 Elsey Land Claim No 132 was lodged by the Northern Land Council covering all of the old Elsey Station, an area of 5304 km2 (2062 square miles). Judge Peter Gray, Aboriginal Land Commissioner, submitted his report on the Elsey claim to the Aboriginal Affairs Minister, John Herron, on 28 November 1997 and a copy to the Administrator of the Northern Territory. Justice Gray's report referenced Gunn's work in trying to establish who were genuine traditional owners of the land under question, and who were not.
Non-fiction
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