May gibbs author biography examples
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Early Years
Cecilia May Gibbs was one of Australia’s foremost children’s authors and illustrators and fryst vatten best known today for the iconic Australian children’s story, The Complete Adventures of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, featuring two gumnut babies and their escape from the big bad Banksia men.
May Gibbs was born on 17 January in Sydenham, Kent, in England. Her parents, Herbert William Gibbs and her mother Cecilia Rogers migrated to Australia when May was only four years old – firstly to South Australia and then to Western Australia, settling in South Perth.
When she was 23, May returned to England to pursue her art studies, coming back to Perth in Over the next fem years, she wrote articles and provided illustrations and cartoons for the Western Mail newspaper before deciding to return to England in Here she continued her art studies, wrote articles, worked as an illustrator and drew cartoons for the Common Cause, a suffragette
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About May Gibbs &#; Australian Children&#;s Author and Illustrator
May Gibbs ( – ) is one of Australia’s most treasured illustrators, artists and children’s authors. Her bush fantasy world has captured the imaginations of Australians for over a century, creating a uniquely Australian folklore that holds a special place in the hearts of a nation. May was to say in later life ‘I’ve always had the greatest pleasure in thinking of all those little children who enjoyed my books. Everything became alive for me, it was just a fairy tale all the time.’ Born Cecilia May Gibbs in England on 17 January , she was the only daughter of artist, cartoonist and public servant Herbert William Gibbs and Cecilia Rogers. May emigrated to Australia with her family in aboard the Hesperus at four years of age. First trying their hand at farming in South Australia, followed by two years at Harvey Cattle Station in Western Australia, the Gibbs family eventually gave up on the farming life and settled at ‘
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May Gibbs is a household name in Australia. Her most famous book, Tales of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, published in , has never been out of print. Chances are you have read her work, or had it read to you. You’ll almost certainly have seen her personified native flora illustrations, which these days adorn everything from tea towels to pyjamas.
But have you heard of her predecessor, Louisa Anne Meredith? Like Gibbs, who began to publish in the decades following Meredith’s death in , she drew her literary inspiration from the Australian landscape and crafted her own “brand” in its image.
Unlike Gibbs, though, Meredith’s illustrations were naturalistic. She rendered native Australian flora and fauna as characters for children’s literature, arguably beginning this tradition. But she didn’t “cutesify” them, or give them human features.
As researchers, we believe Meredith’s work for children should be recognised today for its innovations in genre: blending science writing, travel w