Emily Bathurst; Or, at Home and Abroad, written anonymously by “The Wife of a Clergyman” in 1847, is an example of the nineteenth-century ‘respectable’ novel and combines the genres of Christian conduct manual, evangelical propaganda and travel writing. Louis James describes the creative tension of colonial Victorian literature as deriving from its “cultural schizophrenia” (2). Literary output was caught between a concern for the ‘modern’ and factual and a fascination with the romantic and ‘savage’. In Bathurst, the orderly, instructive nature of the author’s arguments and their grounding in factual information, is intended to assuage the sensibilities of the devout middle-class who condoned fiction only when in the form of a ‘respectable’ novel which “gave instruction for ‘real-life’ situations” (James 5-6). The author’s didactic approach and promotion of female missionary involvement is signalled in her preface which explicitly outlines her purpose as to “meet some of the objections which are constantly urged against undertakings in which every female ought to be interested” (The Wife Preface). She also highlights her intention to dictate correct religious and moral behaviour by adding a secondary purpose: “to point out certain defects which are often visible in the social circle” (Preface). Although not mentioned in the preface, her final interest is in promoting and defending the work of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) whose involvement in New Zealand was subjected to some criticism at the time. Although the author’s information on New Zealand appears to be secondhand, her vivid depiction the little-known world of the ‘New Zealanders’ does provide some romantic appeal to the novel, reflecting the attraction of the unknown which tales of Empire brought to the popular imagination of the time. Yet, even the exoticism of distant New Zealand ultimately serves the author’s religious message.