Turner wrote the novel in 1893 while living at Inglewood in what was then rural Lindfield (now Woodlands, Killara, New South Wales), having moved there from the inner city suburb of Paddington in 1891. The suburban bushland surroundings quickly became important in Turner's stories.
– sketched it out.' (24 January 1893) In 1994 the novel was the only book by an Australian author to have been continuously in print for 100 years.