Her father was one of Australia's leading analytical chemists, who was in England working as an adviser to the munitions industry during World War I when Barbara was born.
Due to the war, her father remained in England and Jefferis was taken into the care of her aged maternal grandfather, who was a widower.
He died when Jefferis was three years old, and she then lived with her paternal grandmother and was absorbed into that woman's extensive group of grandchildren.
Within a short time she married John Hamilton Hinde, a journalist on the same newspaper, and later famous as film critic for the Australian Broadcasting Commission.
It was published in Britain and America in 1954, developing a pattern of her novels being far better known overseas than in Australia, with her books also being translated into a number of Asian and European languages.
The literary prize is one of Australia's richest, the result of a $1 million bequest by John Hinde to commemorate his wife of 64 years.