The book is regarded as being significant as a precursor of the 1930s landscape writers. By 1990 over a million copies of the book had been sold. This novel, together with her other book, was adapted for Australian schools.

By 1945, 320,000 copies of the book had been sold. We of the Never Never was translated into German in 1927. On 16 March 1903 Aeneas died of malarial dysentery and Jeannie returned to Melbourne shortly afterwards. However, she travelled south and her book describes the journey and settling in. In Palmerston (Darwin), Gunn was discouraged from accompanying her husband to the station on the basis that as a woman she would be 'out of place' on a station such as the Elsey. On 2 January 1902 the couple sailed for Port Darwin so that he could take up his role as the station's new manager. Her husband was a partner in Elsey cattle station on the Roper River, some 483 km (300 miles) south of Darwin. The less said about the strained relationship with her husband and Arthur Dignam's hardly remarkable performance the better, but this is Punch McGregor's film all the way with a special mention to the breathtaking majestic landscape photography that makes the outback seem more alluring than ever.Gunn was the first white woman to settle in the Mataranka area.

Further questions of inference arise with an Indigenous man who she tries to force to take medicine, and it is all endlessly engaging as we witness a character with more moral fibre than those around her wrestling with whether or not her generosity is in fact beneficial. The question then arises of whether she actually has the girl's best interests at heart by taking her away from her family and basically trying to adopt her. Particularly compelling are the maternal instincts that swell up inside her as she bonds with a young Indigenous girl without strong parental figures in her life. The plot soon thickens though as she befriends the local Indigenous Australians and finds herself at odds with her Caucasian companions (including her husband), who treat the Aborigines as second class citizens. Having never lived outside the suburbs and finding herself with no Caucasian female company at all, 'We of the Never Never' at first seems predictable with lead actress Angela Punch McGregor undergoing many trials and tribulations adjusting to her new life. Agreeing to live with her cattle rancher husband in the Australian outback circa 1900, a young woman finds her preconceptions and views on the world at large changed in this iconic drama, based on actual events.

We of the Never Never by Jeannie Gunn