Croft
15th March 2007, 04:12 AM
I know this book has been mentioned on the forum before, but I just thought I'd highlight the fact that it's available free on Project Gutenberg at:
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/6104
They were written by Lady Barker from 1865 to 1868.
I've only just begun to read it, but the preface and the little I have read seem to indicate that emigrating in the 19th Century and emigrating in the 21st Century hold similar challenges and pleasures!
These letters, their writer is aware, justly incur the reproach of
egotism and triviality; at the same time she did not see how this
was to be avoided, without lessening their value as the exact
account of a lady's experience of the brighter and less practical
side of colonization. They are published as no guide or handbook
for "the intending emigrant;" that person has already a literature
to himself, and will scarcely find here so much as a single
statistic. They simply record the expeditions, adventures, and
emergencies diversifying the daily life of the wife of a New Zealand
sheep-farmer; and, as each was written while the novelty and
excitement of the scenes it describes were fresh upon her, they may
succeed in giving here in England an adequate impression of the
delight and freedom of an existence so far removed from our own
highly-wrought civilization: not failing in this, the writer will
gladly bear the burden of any critical rebuke the letters deserve.
One thing she hopes will plainly appear,--that, however hard it was
to part, by the width of the whole earth, from dear friends and
spots scarcely less dear, yet she soon found in that new country new
friends and a new home; costing her in their turn almost as many
parting regrets as the old.
She also published a sequel called 'Station Amusement (http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/5992)', also available free online.
Other books I found listed included:
Five Years in New Zealand 1859 to 1864 (http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/18068)
A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 (http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/11933)
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/6104
They were written by Lady Barker from 1865 to 1868.
I've only just begun to read it, but the preface and the little I have read seem to indicate that emigrating in the 19th Century and emigrating in the 21st Century hold similar challenges and pleasures!
These letters, their writer is aware, justly incur the reproach of
egotism and triviality; at the same time she did not see how this
was to be avoided, without lessening their value as the exact
account of a lady's experience of the brighter and less practical
side of colonization. They are published as no guide or handbook
for "the intending emigrant;" that person has already a literature
to himself, and will scarcely find here so much as a single
statistic. They simply record the expeditions, adventures, and
emergencies diversifying the daily life of the wife of a New Zealand
sheep-farmer; and, as each was written while the novelty and
excitement of the scenes it describes were fresh upon her, they may
succeed in giving here in England an adequate impression of the
delight and freedom of an existence so far removed from our own
highly-wrought civilization: not failing in this, the writer will
gladly bear the burden of any critical rebuke the letters deserve.
One thing she hopes will plainly appear,--that, however hard it was
to part, by the width of the whole earth, from dear friends and
spots scarcely less dear, yet she soon found in that new country new
friends and a new home; costing her in their turn almost as many
parting regrets as the old.
She also published a sequel called 'Station Amusement (http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/5992)', also available free online.
Other books I found listed included:
Five Years in New Zealand 1859 to 1864 (http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/18068)
A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 (http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/11933)