'To begin somewhere near the beginning, the Măluka-better known at that time as the new Boss for the Elsey-and I, his 'missus, ' were at Darwin, in the Northern Territory, waiting for the train that was to take us just as far as it could-one hundred and fifty miles-on our way to the Never-Never.

Sympathetic and utterly human, Gunn's voice is a testament to her bravery as the first woman to settle in the Mataranka area, where she lived for just over a year until her husband's tragic death from malaria. Based on her experience accompanying her husband Aeneas to the remote cattle station of Elsey, Gunn's novel is a fascinating masterpiece of Australian literature that explores the landscape of the continent's Northern Territory while depicting the tense relationship between white settlers and the Aboriginal people they displaced. Already in 1908 Australia was a significantly urbanised country and the book was seen to provide symbols of things that made Australia different from anywhere else, underwriting an Australian legend of life and achievement in the outback, where men and a few women still lived heroic lives in rhythm with the gallop of a horse in forbidding faraway places.We of the Never Never (1908) is an autobiographical novel by Jeannie Gunn. The book is regarded as being significant as a precursor of the 1930s landscape writers. Jeannie returned to Melbourne shortly afterwards and never returned to the Northern Territory. Jennie Gunn lived on the cattle station for about a year before her husband, Aeneas, died of malarial dysentery on 16 March 1903. However, she travelled south and her book describes the journey, settling in, and the difficulties of life in the bush. In Palmerston (Darwin), Gunn was discouraged from accompanying her husband to the station on the basis that as a woman she would be out of place on a station such as the Elsey. On 2 January 1902 the couple sailed from Melbourne for Port Darwin so that he could take up a job as the station s new manager. Her husband Aeneas was a partner in the Elsey cattle station on the Roper River, some 483 km (300 miles) south of Darwin. Gunn was the first white woman to settle in the Mataranka area. Over the years, newspapers and magazine articles chronicled the fortunes of the Elsey characters. She published the book under the name Mrs Aeneas Gunn, using her husband s first and last name. Although published as a novel, it is an account of the author s experiences in 1902 at Elsey Station near Mataranka, Northern Territory in which she changed the names of people to obscure their identities.

We of the Never Never is an autobiographical novel by Jeannie Gunn first published in 1908.

We of the never never jeannie gunn