SOURCE: Sturm, Terry. “Popular Fiction.” In The Oxford History of New Zealand Literature in English, edited by Terry Sturm, pp. 493-541. Auckland, New Zealand: Oxford University Press, 1991.

In the following essay, Sturm provides a detailed overview of the publishing history and circumstances as well as significant literary characteristics of popular and romantic fiction published by New Zealand authors.

The Publishing Context

In 1908 the influential New York publishing firm of Doubleday Page offered some friendly advice to G. B. Lancaster (the pen-name of Edith Lyttleton, 1873-1945), whose fourth book they had recently published. The advice took the form of a complaint, that the ‘tremendous power’ of her work was not being ‘used to best advantage because it had never been turned into producing a novel along more usual and conventional lines’:

If you would write a novel or two, more of the sort that people are accustomed to buy...