Karl Emil Jung was a classics teacher at Eton, who emigrated to Australia in the 1850s. In Australia, he journeyed into the interior of the country, spent some years as a squatter, and returned to work in the field of education, including the position of Inspector of Schools for South Australia.

After some twenty years in Australia he returned to Germany and wrote Australien und Neuseeland: Historische, Geographische und Statistische Skizze. The text covers not only Australia, but also New Zealand, Melanesia, Polynesia, and Micronesia.

On the strength of this text, Jung became a leading German authority on Australia, a topic on which he wrote numerous later articles for periodicals, textbooks, and encyclopaedias.