The prolific writer William Howitt (1792–1879) embarked for Australia in 1852 and spent two years there travelling and panning for gold. His experiences resulted in several books that appealed to the Victorian public's avid interest in Antipodean exploration. Published in 1865, when New Zealand had only been recognised as a country for a generation, this two-volume work describes 'scenes of danger and of wild romance, of heroic daring and devoted deaths, such as few countries have to show'. It gives a valuable account of early European exploration and settlement in Australia and New Zealand as well as insights into European travellers' responses to this previously unknown continent. Volume 2 begins in the mid-1840s, and focuses on the 1861 disappearance in Australia of Burke and Wills, the expeditions searching for them (including one led by Howitt's son), and visits to New Zealand by explorers including Charles Heaphy and Julius Haast.