Introduction

The Angel Isafrel is a novel “with a purpose.” So said no less than four reviewers around New Zealand in 1896 when they published their accounts of G.M. Reed’s new novel. That purpose - advocating the implementation of a nationwide prohibition - is one that may seem alien, even ludicrous to New Zealand more than a hundred years later (Bollinger 21)¹. Where the prohibition campaign of the turn of the century was set to eradicate what it called “the demon drink”, current movements argue that “It’s not what we’re drinking. It’s how we’re drinking.” In spite of this shift in public feeling, the novel captures what I perceive to be the feeling and spirit of the historical movement, and also raises some thought provoking arguments on the lengths a community may go to, to protect itself from harm. In this introduction I will attempt to explore the historical background of the prohibition movement which so inspired Reed’s novel; to consider the novel amongst other works of colonial and prohibitionist fiction; and finally to look at Reed’s heroine, Isafrel Chalmers, a character who combines the traditional Victorian ideals of “the angel of the home” with the emerging archetype of the “new woman”.