From the Writer's Note Book

This anthology of writing takes a tour of New Zealand as seen through the eyes of an impressive array of 80 literary luminaries including Dickens, Darwin, Conan Doyle, Kipling, and Louis Stevenson as well as other famous authors from China, Japan, Poland, South America, Canada and all across Europe. Writers from Australia and New Zealand such as Henry Lawson, Ngaio Marsh and Janet Frame also feature, telling in their own words - in the form of private letters as well as vignettes from published works, newspaper articles and poetry - their experiences and impressions of New Zealand during their time here. The collection begins with Darwin's arrival in the Bay of Islands in 1835, roams across the high country landscape with Anthony Trollope in 1872, shares exile with Sir Karl Popper in Christchurch during the Second World War, hangs about Wellington harbour with DH Lawerence and Noel Coward in the early twentieth century and ends at the southern tip of the South Island where adventurer and world-circumnavigator Captain J.C. Voss came ashore.