Station Life in New Zealand (Virago/Beacon Travelers)

by Lady Barker

Paperback, 1987

Status

Available

Publication

Beacon Pr (1987), 238 pages

Description

Written by the adventurous and widely travelled Lady Mary Anne Barker (1831-1911), this 1870 publication records 'the expeditions, adventures, and emergencies diversifying the daily life of the wife of a New Zealand sheep farmer'. Born in Jamaica and educated in England and France, Barker married her second husband in 1865 and spent the next three years living on his sheep station on the South Island. This book is based on letters written to Barker's younger sister, beginning with an account of her two-month voyage to Melbourne and her onward journey via Nelson and Wellington to Christchurch. Barker vividly describes her domestic surroundings, friends, neighbours, servants, her first (and last) experience of camping, the Canterbury landscape and vegetation, and the 7,000 sheep on the farm. Her enthusiastic personal account of Victorian colonial expansion captures the 'delight and freedom of an existence so far from our own highly-wrought civilization'.… (more)

Rating

(13 ratings; 3.5)

Media reviews

This book is a very well-known New Zealand classic, originally published in 1870. Lady Barker came from England with her husband to manage a sheep station in Canterbury for three years. The account is written in the form of letters back to her sister in England. Lady Barker is a fascinating woman
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and much has been written about her. You can read her biography here and more about her here. For a full review with photos please visit here: https://livingpublications.wixsite.com/nzbooks/post/station-life-in-new-zealand-by-lady-barke
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Language

Original language

English

Original publication date

1870

ISBN

0807070297 / 9780807070291
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