FLAPTEKST :

in 1822 Marianne Williams , with her missionary husband Henry and their 3 small children , left England forever ; their destination , which took them a year to reach , was the Bay of Islands , New Zealand , and their new home was a remote one-house settlement - the Church Mission Society mission station headquarters ; this was nearly 20 years before the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi and Marianne ´s only contact with the outside world was in letters home to her familiy in Nottingham ; it is through these letters that , for the first time , her stoy can be told

with only a handful of other Europeans in the country - many so far away that an expedition to see them was mounted only every 2 or 3 years - the Williams family was extremely isolated ; at a time when most women of her age and class were enjoying the luxuries of industrial England , Marianne Williams was living among warring Maori tribes with unruly whaling crews across the bay ; with her husband often absent , she was nurse , midwife and surrogate missionary in the community and coped with running the mission station and schools , providing hospitality to visiting European explorers - including Charles Darwin - and tending to her growing family of 11 children ; yet , despite these immense demands , in her letters the bravery and uncomplaining determination of this extraordinary woman shine through

Caroline FItzgerald , the great-great-granddaughter of Marianne Williams , has collated and edited the numerous letters sent by Marianne and her family ; they provide a window into a key chapter in the history of European interaction with the Maori , and into the unique and courageous character of Marianne Williams herself