The River of No Return by Neil Robinson

Set in the Nova Scotian settlement at Waipu, Northland, in 1860. Set against a montage of bushmen working the virgin kauri forests of Northland, merchants and street-wise opportunists in the young town of Auckland, and sea-faring traders of goods, men and human souls in the tropical islands of New Caledonia and the New Hebrides. This is the story of young Donald McKinnon, on his rite of passage, attempting to question the methods and ideas of the minister, Norman McLeod. He struggles with the expectations and values of his Presbyterian community, as he learns to express his love for the 'beautiful and good' Jessie McKay.

More than 50 years ago, Neil Robinson, a young journalist working on the New Zealand Weekly News, began researching a history of the Scottish immigrants who had settled in Waipu, north of Auckland, after trying first Nova Scotia and then Australia. The result was Lion of Scotland, a history of the travels and travails of these people, a book deservedly honoured when it was published in 1952.

What no one outside his family knew was that during the research period, Robinson had dashed off a novel set among the Waipu settlers. He had typed it on the small oblongs of newsprint that newspapermen used in those days to write their pieces. He then put it in a drawer and told his wife he wouldn't bother offering it to a publisher.

Robinson went on to become one of New Zealand's best known magazine feature writers, and rose to become literary editor of the Weekly News before his appointment as New Zealand editor for international publishers, Hodder and Stoughton.

Paperback, 2002, 273pages, very good condition, foxing on end page