This non-fiction work was published in 1863 in London, although Butler was living abroad at the time. The book is a compilation of the letters he sent home to his family in England, which his father reputedly recognised the value of as a published work and so collated and edited them. The writing is detailed and somewhat pedantic, though it is important to bear in mind that it was not Butler that edited the work and we cannot be sure how much of the finished book truly reflects his own voice as a writer. Butler certainly purported to have been embarrassed by the book, but at the same time he often denigrated himself simply to amuse his friends, so it is hard to say what he really thought of the published volume. It is also rather ironic that Butler’s father encouraged his son to go to New Zealand to remove any notions of an artistic life from his thoughts and yet it was he who was ultimately responsible for this book being produced in his son’s name.
The narrative begins in Gravesend, where Butler began his emigration, and continues in a logical fashion with the voyage itself. Once Butler is in New Zealand, the descriptions become more vivid and engaging; his exploits as a sheep farmer in Southern New Zealand on an estate adjacent to the Rangitata River are recounted in great detail, from how he looked after his animals, their cost, and his management of the land itself, even down to the layout of fences and gates. Details of Canterbury and Butler’s travels in the South Island are also included. The work is in a logical narrative order, with dates for many paragraphs much like a diary, enabling the reader to follow the seasons and the farming year.
Such is the detail of his life in what was to many Britons an unknown land, that in the preface of one edition it was claimed that the book was being used as a helpful guide by would-be emigrants to New Zealand.