Mary Eliza Bakewell Gaunt (1861-1942), was an Australian novelist. she was educated at Grenville College, Ballarat, where her facility in writing was noted. Mary Gaunt believed that a woman had the right to follow her own career and be financially independent, even if married. On 19 March 1881 she was one of the first women to sign the matriculation roll of the University of Melbourne; she began an arts course but did not continue after poor results in her first year. She turned to writing: "It was my ambition to be a writer", she recalled, "I wrote merely because I wanted to make money", and money was "a means of locomotion". Drawing on childhood memories of goldfield towns and her brothers" yarns of exotic places, she contributed articles and stories to Australian and overseas papers and magazines. One of her earliest pieces was an article on gold for Cassell"s Picturesque Australasia. Her earnings enabled her to travel to England and India…