With fanfare , we present a battered paperback , recently found at a Darwin garage sale by one of our treasure hunters , written by Mrs Aeneas Gunn , published by Robertson and Mullens , Melbourne , in 1947, adapted for use in schools. It includes a preface about Mrs Gunn and her husband, an outline of the Northern Territory's history .
There is also a 1905 newspaper appreciation of the book by the British evolutionary biologist ,anthropologist and ethnologist , Professor Baldwin Spencer ,of Melbourne University , who said he knew of nothing comparable to the book in any writings on Australian Aborigines .
He went on to refer to Aborigines in what would not be regarded as politically correct terms today - repeated in the 1947 edition adapted for use in schools.
The Little Black Princes : a True Tale of We of the Never-Never Land was first published in London and Australia in 1905 and received much praise
The cover illustration of the above 1947 book was a drawing of the actual photograph of Aboriginal girl Bett-Bett , with a dingo- looking dog, Sue .
In the Little Darwin files is a newspaper clipping from the Melbourne Argus of April 24,1907 , about Bett-Bett coming south and meeting Mrs Gunn .
Mrs Gunn (1870-1961) wrote the equally popular autobiographical novel We of the Never - Never about life on a cattle station in the Northern Territory where she went with her husband in 1902, he dying from malarial dysentery soon after .
The petite author, nee Jeannie Taylor , brought up in Melbourne ,where she taught gymnastics and elocution , married Aeneas Gunn , the librarian at the Prahran Free Library . He had explored parts of North Australia while helping to set up sheep and cattle stations. In 1901 , just before their marriage , he was appointed manager of the Elsey cattle station on the Roper River in the NT, in the so- called Land of the Never- Never.
We of the Never was made into a film in 1982 starring Angela Punch McGregor , Arthur Dignam , John Jarratt and Anthony Barry .
Early this year Mrs Gunn was one of the authors highlighted in a display at the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly Library .
The Dictionary of Australian Biography states Mrs Gunn was active in welfare work for soldiers and their families during both world wars and was awarded the OBE .
In the display of notable Territorians in Darwin is a tile for Henry Peckham , the postman in We of the Never Never , given the name , The Fizzer.
