Under the name of G.B. Lancaster, Edith Lyttleton wrote over a dozen novels and some 250 short stories, mostly narratives of romance and adventure set in the remote back country of New Zealand, Australia, and Canada. She was New Zealand’s most widely read author overseas in the first half of the twentieth century, reaching millions of readers. Writing first from her family’s Canterbury sheep station, in the face of fierce parental opposition, she later travelled widely, researching her stories in the Yukon, Nova Scotia, and Tasmania.

This book is a fascinating account of the harsh experience of a gifted woman writer forced to earn her own living but struggling to move beyond the limits of potboilers to more serious work.

Terry Sturm (d. 2009) was a professor of English at the University of Auckland and a leading critic and scholar of New Zealand and Australian writing. He was the editor of The Oxford History of New Zealand Literature (1991, 1998) .

Terry Sturm's profile page

• Short-listed, Montana New Zealand Book Awards