A love story that led to an Australian wildlife adventure: Grantlee Kieza’s new foray into our extraordinary past

From outlaws and heroes to a love story that changed our understanding of Aussie wildlife – no, it’s not the Irwins – this storyteller is bringing our past to life.

Here I am surrounded by Australia’s rich history in the special collections area of the Mitchell Library Reading Room in Macquarie Street, Sydney, and I’m poring over a letter written by a lonely London governess to her mother almost 200 years ago.

The writer was 23-year-old Elizabeth Coxen who said she was praying for a young man to “enter into one’s feelings”.

The young man who entered her heart soon after was John Gould, and together Mr and Mrs Gould, the subjects of my latest book, became the great wildlife publishers of their time, making an historic voyage to the Australian colonies in 1838 to provide sublime, illustrated records of the unique birds and mammals of this country.

That heartfelt letter, written in a spidery hand, opened a portal into the life of the Goulds, and through more of their correspondence and writings, allowed me to thoroughly explore their world.

‘Extraordinary flesh-and-blood characters’ … John and Elizabeth Gould, from the cover of Grantlee Kieza’s new book.

John wrote often of the love he had for his wife and children, and Elizabeth, writing from a slab homestead in the wilds of the Upper Hunter Valley, documented among her many experiences on the frontier, her baby’s teething problems, how at seven months he was still a bad feeder and lived “more upon me than any child I have had before”.

Reading the actual handwritten correspondence of famous figures at the forefront of Australian history has allowed me a fascinating, immersive insight into my subjects so that I can present them not as dry and dusty historical figures but as the extraordinary flesh-and-blood characters of their times.

‘GIRLS, TAKE IT’: How Vivian Bullwinkel survived a massacre

The subjects I write about have all led thrilling lives and I try to tell their stories in a narrative way, just as in a novel, with the pace and the suspense that they actually experienced. Hopefully their lives flow from them to the page, whether it was Banjo Paterson riding on a mountain pony beside men from Snowy River, Joseph Banks fighting for his life in a shipwreck on the Great Barrier Reef or Vivian Bullwinkel crawling up a beach after being left for dead with a bullet in her back.

‘Left for dead’ … Sister Vivian Bullwinkel giving evidence at the war crimes trials in Japan. Her incredible story was documented in Grantlee Kieza’s 2024 book Sister Viv.

They are all human stories and I try to present them that way, as people who experienced the utmost drama and pathos in their lives, with lashings of humour and excitement too.

I read the 240-year-old notes of Lachlan Macquarie from his time as a young Scottish soldier stationed in Canada and Jamaica – about him pursuing love – and of him then pouring out his heart as it bled over the sudden death of his beautiful young wife.

Before I wrote my biography on the aviator Bert Hinkler 12 years ago, I was able to interview his nephew, Ron Hinkler, a man then in his 90s who vividly recalled Bert piloting the little Avro Avian around his hometown of Bundaberg in 1928 after having flown it solo from England.

I was also able to leaf through the scrapbook Hinkler kept as a small boy in the early years of the 20th century, saving newspaper cuttings about two bicycle salesmen, the Wright Brothers, who had just made the first recorded powered flight at Kittyhawk, North Carolina. Suddenly I could see that young boy, sitting at a kitchen table in a little weatherboard home in country Queensland dreaming of one day flying to astonish the world.

‘I even interviewed elderly people who knew Ned Kelly’s brother’ … Grantlee Kieza on the importance of immersing himself in the story.

When I came to write my book Mrs Kelly about the mother of the bushranger Ned Kelly, I was able to interview several of her descendants and also a descendant of one of the policemen Kelly shot. I even interviewed elderly people who as children knew Ned’s brother, Big Jim, who died in 1946, 66 years after saying goodbye to Ned the night before he was hanged.

I spent weeks at the National Library in Canberra trawling through 185 boxes containing John Monash’s possessions, for my Monash biography, examining by hand his photos, diaries and letters. I even read the little pocket diary he carried with him when the Anzacs stormed Gallipoli amid so much bloodshed.

Banjo Paterson’s great-grandson Alistair Campbell gave me wonderful insights into the man behind the legend and even brought some of his grazier mates to Sydney to hear me speak about my Paterson book at the Australian Club.

‘Astonishing recollections’ … colourised image of WW1 veteran and Qantas founder Hudson Fysh.

When I gave wings to the story of Hudson Fysh, his children, Wendy and John, both in their 90s, and his grandsons David Miles and Alastair Fysh, were able to provide astonishing recollections of the man who spent 10 years in hot, dusty Longreach building his fledgling bush taxi service into the global giant Qantas.

And when I wrote about the extraordinary Vivian Bullwinkel, who escaped with a bullet wound from a massacre of nurses by the Japanese in World War II, her nephew John Bullwinkel shared many anecdotes about her and gave me her letters and interviews that few other people had ever seen.

I’ve written about some extraordinary Australians and during that time I’ve also met so many kind, generous and fascinating people who have helped to bring those subjects alive.

Mr & Mrs Gould by Grantlee Kieza will be published on October 30 by ABC Books.

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Love and nature … Mr & Mrs Gould by Grantlee Kieza.

Originally published as A love story that led to an Australian wildlife adventure: Grantlee Kieza’s new foray into our extraordinary past