Pre-order
1
of
1
The Country Schoolmaster
A Mystery in 88 Letters
Brief Description
'I stood there holding the hundred-year-old letter with a feeling that was familiar from other archives, other bulging files of dog-eared paper. It was a blood-running-fast, itchy-palm, eyes-wide-open feeling of stumbling on something. A story ...' Rummaging around in the Archives one afternoon, Kate Grenville comes...
Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
$4500
Unit price
/
Unavailable
Pre-order
Releases
29th
September 2026
(Approx. Date)
Pre-order "The Country Schoolmaster" now to secure your copy from our first shipment
Found a better price? Request a price match
The Country Schoolmaster
$4500
Unit price
/
Unavailable
Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and
still learning, it may not be perfect - your
feedback is welcome!
Description
'I stood there holding the hundred-year-old letter with a feeling that was familiar from other archives, other bulging files of dog-eared paper. It was a blood-running-fast, itchy-palm, eyes-wide-open feeling of stumbling on something. A story ...'
Rummaging around in the Archives one afternoon, Kate Grenville comes across an innocuous-looking file full of letters about a schoolteacher in country New South Wales. Intrigued, she keeps reading - and discovers a tale far more curious and complex than first appears. Was Joseph Connor savagely beating the students in his care? Or was he the victim of a small-town vendetta? And what went so terribly wrong between him and his daughter?
Ultimately, Grenville simply has to know: was Connor a victim or a villain? Part colonial cold case, part locked-room mystery, part the dance of a writer's imagination among facts and semi-facts, The Country Schoolmaster is a book like no other. In it, the novelist comes to understand the seductive pleasure of story-making, but also its dangerous limitations.
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9781760646257
Publisher: Black Inc.
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 29 September 2026
Country: Australia
Imprint: Black Inc.
Audience: General / adult
DIMENSIONS
Spine width: 1.0mm
Width: 1.0mm
Height: 1.0mm
Weight: 1g
Pages: 288
About the Author
Kate Grenville is one of Australia's most celebrated writers. Her international bestseller The Secret River was awarded local and overseas prizes and is now a much-loved classic. Grenville's other novels include The Lieutenant, Lilian's Story, the Orange Prize-winner The Idea of Perfection and A Room Made of Leaves. Her works of non-fiction include One Life: My Mother's Story, Elizabeth Macarthur's Letters and, most recently, Unsettled: A Journey Through Time and Place.
Also by Kate Grenville
View all-
The Case Against Fragrance
A beautifully written, clear-eyed investigation of the science of scent and the power of the fragrance industry, from one of Australia's greatest writers. Kate Grenville had always associated perfume with elegance and beauty. Then the headaches started. Like perhaps a quarter of the population, Grenville reacts badly to the artificial fragrances around usβother people's perfumes, and all those scented cosmetics,...Paperback$2200Elsewhere:$2400Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
Unsettled
What does it mean to be on land taken from others? What does it mean to be on land that was taken from other people? Now that we know how the taking was done, what do we do with that knowledge? Kate Grenville is no stranger to the past. Her success and fame as a writer exploded when she published...Paperback$4100Elsewhere:$4500Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
Elizabeth Macarthur's Letters
Elizabeth Macarthur's Letters by Kate Grenville is a captivating collection, serving as the inspiration for her bestselling, award-winning novel A Room Made of Leaves. These letters formed the foundation for Kate Grenville's acclaimed novel, A Room Made of Leaves. They inspired the depiction of her imagined Elizabeth Macarthurβshrewd, subtle, and passionate. Through these letters, we get a glimpse into the...Hardback$3600Elsewhere:$4000Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
The Secret River
After a childhood of poverty and petty crime in the slums of London, William Thornhill is transported to New South Wales for the term of his natural life. With his wife Sal and children in tow, he arrives in a harsh land that feels at first like a death sentence. But among the convicts, there is a whisper that freedom...Paperback$2400Elsewhere:$2600Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
A Room Made of Leaves
The first new novel in almost ten years from award-winning, bestselling author Kate Grenville. What if Elizabeth Macarthurβwife of the notorious John Macarthur, wool baron in the earliest days of Sydneyβhad written a shockingly frank secret memoir? And what if novelist Kate Grenville had miraculously found and published it? That's the starting point for A Room Made of Leaves, a...Hardback$4400Elsewhere:$4800Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
A Room Made of Leaves
Kate Grenville's latest bestselling novel, now in a beautiful paperback edition. What if Elizabeth Macarthurβwife of the notorious John Macarthur, wool baron in the earliest days of Sydneyβhad written a shockingly frank secret memoir? And what if novelist Kate Grenville had miraculously found and published it? Marriage to a ruthless bully, the impulses of her heart, the search for power...Paperback$3400Elsewhere:$3700Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
A Room Made of Leaves
Kate Grenville's latest bestselling novel, now in a smaller format and featuring a beautiful updated cover design. What if Elizabeth Macarthurβwife of the notorious John Macarthur, wool baron in the earliest days of Sydneyβhad written a shockingly frank secret memoir? And what if novelist Kate Grenville had miraculously found and published it? Marriage to a ruthless bully, the impulses of...Paperback$2400Elsewhere:$2600Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
Restless Dolly Maunder
Restless Dolly Maunder is shortlisted for the 2024 Women's Prize for Fiction. An exquisite portrait of Kate Grenville's complex, conflicted grandmotherβa woman Kate feared as a child, and only came to understand in adulthood. Dolly Maunder was born at the end of the nineteenth century, when society's long-locked doors were starting to creak ajar for women. Growing up in a...Hardback$4500Elsewhere:$5000Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
Restless Dolly Maunder
Dolly Maunder was born at the end of the nineteenth century, when societyβs long-locked doors were starting to creak ajar for women. Growing up in a poor farming family in country New South Wales but clever, energetic and determined, Dolly spent her restless life pushing at those doors. Most women like her have disappeared from view, remembered only in family...Paperback$3600Elsewhere:$4000Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
Sarah Thornhill
From the beginning, Jack and I were friends. Somehow our way of looking at things fitted together. He never called me Dolly, the way the others did, only my full and proper name. Sarah Thornhill is the youngest child of William Thornhill, convict-turned-landowner on the Hawkesbury River. She grows up in the fine house her father is so proud of,...Paperback$2700Elsewhere:$3000Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
Dark Places
This is Albion Gidley Singer at the pen, a man with a weakness for a good fact. The first fact is always the hardest: you have to begin somewhere, and such is the nature of this intractable universe that the only thing you can start with is yourself. Dark Places, a companion novel to Lilian's Story, is the tale of...Paperback$1799Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
Lilian's Story
Listen, I told myself, and heard the waves against the harbour-wall, a gull being peevish, the white tapping stick of a blind man against the stones. Listen, I told myself, this is history. Loosely inspired by the legendary Sydney bohemian Bea Miles, Kate Grenvilleβs much-loved debut novel recounts the life of the irrepressible Lilian Una Singer: from wealthy middle-class girlhood...Paperback$1799Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks
More from History & Military
View all-
Saving Elli
One child. Two years in hiding. Three lives in mortal danger. In Nazi-occupied Amsterdam, near Anne Frank's house, another Jewish girl is hidden. Her name is Elli. Her father has been executed at Mauthausen concentration camp. Her mother is fleeing for her life. Elli is next. To save her, resistance couple Frits and Jo Hakkens must risk everything, concealing her...Paperback$3299Elsewhere:$3799Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
The Spy and the Traitor
The Spy and the Traitor by Ben Macintyre is a spellbinding Cold War thriller that unravels the true story of Oleg Gordievsky, a KGB double agent who risked everything to aid the British in the battle against Soviet oppression. In meticulously researched detail, Macintyre paints a vivid portrait of espionage, double-crossing, and unparalleled bravery, giving readers a riveting glimpse into...Paperback$2100Elsewhere:$2600Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
New ReleaseSuicidal Empathy
The bestselling author of The Parasitic Mind shows why empathy in politics leads to civilizational collapse. What happens when a society elevates victimhood to a virtue and decides that punishment is cruel? You get the disease Dr. Gad Saad calls suicidal empathy. And the West may be terminally infected. In his new book, Suicidal Empathy, Saad unleashes a blistering critique...Paperback$3099Elsewhere:$3799Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
Man's Search For Meaning
Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl is a profound, thought-provoking memoir and psychological exploration that delves into the harrowing experiences of life in Nazi concentration camps, intertwined with the authorβs groundbreaking theories on existential psychology. The book is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit, offering a beacon of hope and a roadmap for finding purpose...Paperback$1800Elsewhere:$2100Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
Betrayal
βTom Bower is the Inspector Morse of investigative biographers, a fluent, phlegmatic storyteller and a master of intricacies.β Sunday Times The British Crown is in crisis, with constitutional threats at home and abroad. At a landmark moment in royal history, can King Charles overcome the scandals that blight the Royal family? Can the broken bonds between the Houses of Sussex...Paperback$3499Elsewhere:$3999Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
The Chief and the Empire
The Chief and the Empire uncovers the extraordinary true tale of Te Tai Tokerau rangatira Te Pahi - the first influential MΔori leader to cross the Tasman - whose curiosity about the PΔkehΔ world forged alliances, saved lives, and ultimately cost him his own. On a visit to Sydney in 1805, Te Pahi was feted as a celebrity, building close...Paperback$3200Elsewhere:$3999Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
Discipline
Silence is complicity, but how do we confront the cost of speaking up? Sydney, May 2021. Ashraf is an academic whose career and personal life are in freefall. Hannah is a young journalist struggling to honour the voices of her community. When a Year 12 Al-Bayinnah College student is arrested for protesting a university's ties to an Israeli weapons manufacturer,...Paperback$4000Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
Shattered Lands
'A sparkling debut by an outstanding young historian' β PETER FRANKOPAN 'This book is a revelation β¦ both original and important' β MISHAL HUSAIN A history of modern South Asia told through five partitions that reshaped it. As recently as 1928, a vast swathe of Asia β India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Nepal, Bhutan, Yemen, Oman, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, and...Paperback$3699Elsewhere:$4500Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
Goliathβs Curse
Goliathβs Curse by Luke Kemp offers a radical retelling of human history through the lens of collapse, delving into what this means for our uncertain future. This narrative spans from the dawn of our species to the urgent existential threats of the twenty-first century and beyond. It's grounded in the latest research and a comprehensive database of more than 440...Paperback$2999Elsewhere:$4000Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
New ReleaseThe Good Settler
βWhere once I saw a view as I drove around the Taranaki coast along State Highway 45, I now see confiscated land from an invasion road. The creation story I used to subscribe to, the one in which hard-working people came here and settled the land, now jars. Weirdly, even the lawn looks different. The form of things just wonβt...Paperback$3199Elsewhere:$3999Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
Banjara
A powerful literary debut from an astonishing new Kiwi voice, focusing on the Indo-Fijian indenture system and how it affected generations across the Pacific.Rajasthan 1888: Avani Rathod, a nomad of the Banjara community, is summoned to teach a blue-eyed colonial officer the trees of her region, but instead is misled into indenture to the sugarcane plantations of Fiji. While on...Paperback$3099Elsewhere:$3799Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
This Way Up
The debut book from the YouTube sensation and all-round cartographical nerds, The Map Men! In their long-awaited debut, YouTubeβs Map Men bring their highly infectious enthusiasm for everything map-related to the printed page for the very first time, in a brilliantly entertaining and eye-catching tome. Packed with humour and fascinating facts, This Way Up takes a deep dive into the...Paperback$3199Elsewhere:$3999Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today
Why buy from us?
Book Hero is not a chain store or big box retailer. We're an independent 100% NZ-owned business on a mission to help more Kiwis rediscover a love of books and reading!
Service & Delivery
Our warehouse in Auckland holds over 100,000 books, toys, board games and puzzles in-stock so you're not waiting for your order to arrive from overseas.
Auckland Bookstore
We're primarily an online store, but for your convenience you can pick up your order for free from our bookstore, which is right next door to our warehouse in Hobsonville.
Our Gifting Service
Books make wonderful thoughtful gifts and we're here to help with gift-wrapping and cards. We can even send your gift directly to your loved one.
