Waitaruna by Alexander Bathgate
July 2019
Waitaruna: A Story of New Zealand Life is a 74,000-plus-word novel about colonists in New Zealand. The Treaty of Waitangi between the United Kingdom and the Maoris was signed in 1840, giving sovereignty over the islands to the former. The events in this novel, published originally in 1881, occur in the 1860s as the inrush of Europeans was ramping up. Almost everybody was a newcomer busy forming, and finding their way in, the newly-forming nation.
The story starts in England with the young hero about to embark for New Zealand, follows him through his journey around the world, his arrival in Dunedin, New Zealand—then a brand new and much smaller municipality recently invigorated by the discovery of gold in nearby “Muttontown”—and finally his arrival at his pre-arranged work assignment on the Waitaruna homestead where he learns his new trade as a sheep farmer, discovers the beauty of New Zealand, endures tragedy, and, ultimately, wins the love of the woman who will become his wife.
The story starts in England with the young hero about to embark for New Zealand, follows him through his journey around the world, his arrival in Dunedin, New Zealand—then a brand new and much smaller municipality recently invigorated by the discovery of gold in nearby “Muttontown”—and finally his arrival at his pre-arranged work assignment on the Waitaruna homestead where he learns his new trade as a sheep farmer, discovers the beauty of New Zealand, endures tragedy, and, ultimately, wins the love of the woman who will become his wife.