Shipwrecks, pirates and brothels, oh my! Melodrama in early Dunedin
By Bronwyn Wylie-Gibb | Posted: Friday Mar 06, 2026
Wild Latitudes by Barbara Else (Vintage, 2007)
Wild Latitudes by Barbara Else is a sparkling, witty romp that expertly and affectionately skewers the tropes of the more melodramatic end of historical fiction, while making some important points about identity, self-determination, courage and resilience. It is also a wonderful portrait of Dunedin in 1864, capturing the hurly burly exhilaration, darknesses and contradictions of a newly rich frontier town, with all its desperate chancers, ne’er-do-wells, would-be robber barons and demi-monde habitués in thrall to the enchantments of the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens. This is also a town founded and bounded by Presbyterian rectitude, with a lot of churches and some important mansions, a very respectable middle class, with money, education and ambition, floating above the noisy, noisome populace, yearning to create a city with every civilised amenity – in 1869, just 5 years later they’ll create New Zealand’s first university.
Into this boisterous, dangerous, slippery world two orphan siblings, Adele and Godwin, are upended. Separated while travelling from Yorkshire to Dunedin, they immediately set about finding each other while keeping their heads above water in this booming town intoxicated with gold-rush glitter.
Adele and Godwin encounter, create and survive (more or less) many crises, scrapes and escapades (murder, evil relations, barely-bridled passions, one’s own and others’, dubious characters, asylums, love and false friends); enough to thrill and satisfy Austen’s sensation-novel loving Catherine Morland. The pair, separately, rely on luck, charm and determination to navigate this brave new world. The kindness of strangers, Shakespeare-adjacent identity games, their own quick-thinking, steer them through to unexpected situations and surprising conclusions about themselves and what their lives may look like – there are chances here for re-invention and different sorts of lives.
This book displays Barbara Else’s wit and sharp observations of human nature that are found in her other contemporary adult novels. Her well-researched descriptions of early Dunedin, its smells, sounds, animals and people, its exciting and excited spirit are fascinating, and believable, as magnificent a piece of world-building as her award-winning children’s books. Her characters are by turns stubborn, compassionate, vulnerable and endearing. This is a funny, clever, exciting read – both a pastiche of historical novels and a proper historical novel that illuminates a past time and place where, yes, they did things differently but perhaps we can glimpse people a little like ourselves in their concerns, loves and hopes.
Wild Latitudes was published in 2007 by Vintage, it is available to buy now (2026) as an ebook from Penguin Random House New Zealand through the usual channels.
Find this book and over 3000 others in the Dunedin City of Literature Collection at Dunedin Public Libraries.
Bronwyn Wylie-Gibb worked in independent bookshops in Aotearoa and the UK for over 34 years, as a bookseller and book buyer. She lives and reads in Dunedin.
