Here’s one from the Long Overdue Recognition Department. Terry Sturm’s An Unsettled Spirit is subtitled The life and frontier fiction of Edith Lyttelton, and profiles New Zealand’s first blockbuster novelist.

Lyttleton wrote under the pen-name of GB Lancaster. She was one of New Zealand's most widely read authors of popular fiction from the early twentieth century to the end of the Second World War. Her novels and short stories were crammed with adventure and romance, and were usually set in the remote back country or hinterland territories of colonial New Zealand, Australia or Canada. They were hugely popular books, yet Lyttleton has been almost entirely forgotten since her death in 1945.

In the Herald, Jim Eagles has written a fascinating review of what could be an even more fascinating book.

This book may go some way towards reviving interest in a remarkable woman whose writing offers intriguing insights into the impact of colonial life in several countries, and who clearly deserves to be remembered as one of the most successful pioneers of New Zealand writing.

It is a pity that Sturm's rather dull style fails to match either the colourful writing or the fascinating life of his subject, but his 15 years of research into her life have certainly uncovered a wealth of information that might otherwise have been lost.

Interested? Check out Julia Millen's more favourable October 2003 Listener review of the same book.