The Hopeful Traveller

The book has two halves, each starting from one cover, so it can be read from either end. In one, set in 1851, the Great Exhibition in London sends Harry Head off to the New World, a contented gardener named Firmin is taken along by gentry who want to escape a dying civilisation, and the orphan May finds her own way there; with others they end up on a small island off the New Zealand coast, where the idealists found a community called Harmonia. In the other half, shortly after the attacks of September 2001, three couples go out to the same island to celebrate Mike's fiftieth birthday, while its future as a luxury resort or a conservation park hangs in the balance.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Genres

Historical (assigned by AI)

Set in

United Kingdom, New Zealand, 1851 and 2001

First published

2002

Author's age

55 when first published

ISBN

9781869415174 (Vintage, New Zealand)