Physical description

War to The Knife
Author: Pen Name Rolf Boldrewood For (Thomas Alexander Browne)
Publisher: Macmillan And Co
Printer: Robert Clark
Date: 1899
Blue cloth hardcover and spine with spine lettering in gilt. The spine has a Library label with inscription.

Publication type

fiction

Inscriptions & markings

The label on the spine cover with typed text R.A. 823.912 BOL
Inside the front loose paper has pencil handwriting that is unreadable

Summary

War to the Knife; or, Tangata Maori is a late 19th-century historical romance novel written by the prominent Australian author Rolf Boldrewood (the pen name of Thomas Alexander Browne) and published by the historic house Macmillan & Co. in 1899. Unlike most of Boldrewood's work, which is rooted deeply in the Australian outback, War to the Knife shifts its setting to New Zealand during the Waikato War of the 1860s, which was part of the New Zealand Land Wars.
The story follows Sir Roland Massinger, a cultured English squire who suffers a devastating heartbreak at home when the woman he loves, Hypatia Tollemache, rejects him to pursue a life dedicated to social reform. Distraught, Sir Roland leaves his ancestral estate and emigrates to New Zealand in search of adventure and a fresh start. Upon arriving, he finds himself caught squarely in the middle of the violent clash between the Pakeha (British colonial settlers) and the indigenous Maori tribes over the ownership of the Waitara land block. Written in a late-Victorian style that heavily blends high-stakes adventure with a romanticised "frontier" view, the book attempts to explore colonial identity and the cultural friction of the era.