(Cecilia) May Gibbs is one of Australia’s most well-known and enduring children’s picture book authors and illustrators. Yet like many authors who went on to be phenomenally successful (think of J.K. Rowling with the Harry Potter series), she struggled to get her first book published.

As a young artist in Perth, (Cecilia) May Gibbs was already making a name for herself as an illustrator. Her pen and ink drawings illustrated the fashion pages of the Western Mail newspaper and in 1906 she won the contract for the cover of the Christmas edition. Her wildflower paintings held ‘pride of place’ in the Western Australian court at the 1900 Paris International Exhibition. On a trip to London, she impressed London-based publishers George Harrap and Company, who commissioned her to illustrate books on English social history.

All this success makes it hard to understand why a Perth-based publisher would decline to publish children’s picture books by this local artist whose star was rising internationally.

Undeterred, Gibbs took her manuscripts and herself to London again in 1909. One of her proposals was called ‘Mimie and Wog: Their Adventures in Australia’. The unpublished manuscript, with sketches in watercolour and pencil, is in the Library’s collection and has been digitised for the website. It depicts a blonde girl of about eight years, who escapes the cold of England with her hairy dog and has a series of adventures —some frightening and others delightful — in the Australian bush.

While it would be another four years before May Gibbs published a picture book set in Australia, she had finally debuted as an author-illustrator. Then, in December 1916, to take advantage of the Christmas market, Angus & Robertson published Gumnut Babies and Gum Blossom Babies in Australia. In 1918 they followed up with Wattle Babies and Snugglepot and Cuddlepie: Their Adventures Wonderful.

These books have become part of the Australian canon of classic children’s picture books. They rely on the time-honoured trope of good verses evil – in this case the ‘bad Banksia men’ verses the gumnuts. There are narrow escapes in the dark of night, identity frauds, abductions, last-minute rescues on perilous cliffs and joyous reunions. Adult readers are not forgotten, with characters named Ann Chovy and Dr Hokus Stickus. The characters develop their own lingo with exclamations such as ‘great claws!’ and ‘Isn’t it gummy!’ (meaning grand).

The gumnuts’ adventures parallel life in the adult world — working and earning money, visiting the dentist, going to the ballet, cooking and celebrating with friends.

To help sell her picture books to publishers, Gibbs hired a literary agent. But even he was unable to convince publishers that there was a market for books of nursery rhymes or escapades set in Australia with its strange looking fauna and scraggly forests. He tactfully suggested that if Gibbs were to change the setting, she might have more success.

In all her creative work, Gibbs drew inspiration from her environment. Living in London, she looked out of her attic window and transported her blonde heroine, Mimie, and her shaggy dog to ‘Chimney Pot Land’. Instead of getting lost in the Australian bush, they are lost on the streets of London. Girl and pooch are traumatically separated but reunited with the help of a ‘dear little Gutter Girl’, a cluster of alley cats and a colony of bats. For luck, or for strength, Gibbs re-christened ‘Mimie’ as ‘Mamie’, which was her childhood nickname. The book, titled About Us, found publishers in London and New York in 1912.

Preceding the Disney princesses by many decades, Gibbs created the gumnut babies with big round eyes, full of innocence. They remind me of Anna and Elsa from Frozen, minus the make-up. Perhaps this is one of the secrets of their enduring appeal.

To commemorate the centenary of the publication of Gumnut Babies and Gum Blossom Babies in December 1916, the library has curated two exhibitions. An exhibition of May Gibbs’ original artworks are on display in the Amaze Gallery until 15 January 1917. Reproductions of works from her career are also on display in the Macquarie building on level 1 and will tour to regional libraries in 2017–18.

The May Gibbs’ collection was presented to the library by the Northcott Society and the Cerebral Palsy Alliance in 1970.