Green Dolphin Street Author:Elizabeth Goudge The time is 1830, the characters are varying and quite interesting and provocative. The plot wraps around twoo girls, and the main character William. He ends up marrying the wrong one, even though both were in love with him. From the idylic existence on the island, William joins the Royal Navy, later gettin into trouble and having to leave the N... more »avy. He becomes a lumberman, and then a sheep farmer and he endured many things, earthquake and the Maori wars,snd all the vicissitudes of pioneer life.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: "Though this book is fiction, and the characters are not portraits, it is based on fact. That a man should emigrated to the new world should after the loss of years write home for a bride, and then get the wrong one because he had confused her name with that of her sister, may seem to tje reader highly improbable; yet it happened. And in real life also the man held his tongue about his mistake and made a good job of his marriage. The Convent of Notre Dame du Castel has no existence in actual fact, though it is true that monks from Monte-Saint-Michael crossed the sea in their frail little boat and founded a hermitage on the island of Guernsey. Le Creux des Faies exists to this day, and the footprints of the fairy Abbesses are still to be found imprinted on the rock, and Marie-Tape Tout still guides fishermen home. To all lovers of New Zealand it will be immediately obvious that the writer has never been there, and I humbly ask their pardon for the many mistakes I have made."« less