IN THE PRESS
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Jane Tolerton’s ETTIE
ROUT: NEW ZEALAND’S SAFER SEX PIONEER reveals a humorous, energetic and compassionate woman who confronted wartime
realities with stubborn and
effective pragmatism.
Tolerton writes with an equal energy and insight into her subject’s extraordinary life and times.
New Zealand Listener's '100 Best Books of 2013': AN AWFULLY BIG ADVENTURE traces the reminiscences and reflections of 80 veterans interviewed for the World War One Oral History Archive.
Deeply affecting and absorbing, An Awfully Big Adventure is an important historical memoir that reads as if it all happened yesterday.
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CHRIS MOORE, THE LISTENER
NEW ZEALAND LISTENER
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LT GEN the RT HON SIR JERRY MATEPARAE, GOVERNOR GENERAL
'[F]ew publications will be quite as engrossing as this one . . . I found the stories of these very real people, who went to war almost a century ago, enormously interesting, moving and compelling.'
BIO
Jane Tolerton, 2024
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Jane's biography Ettie Rout: A Life of Ettie Rout was published by Penguin Books in 1992 and won a New Zealand Book Award. Her best-selling Convent Girls, featuring edited interviews with women who had been taught by nuns, was published by Penguin Books in 1994 and sold 12,500 copies. Sixties Chicks followed in 1997.
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Jane formed the World War 1 Oral History Archive in 1987 with Nicholas Boyack. The pair interviewed 84 veterans, and published In the Shadow of War featuring a dozen edited interviews and an essay on the post-war experiences of the men in 1990.
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To produce An Awfully Big Adventure, published in 2013, Jane put extracts of the interviews into chronological order so that readers could be walked through the war by the soldiers’ stories. In 2014, Jane produced a shorter biography of Ettie Rout, focussing on her war-time safe sex campaign, for the centenary of the war.
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Her 2017 work, Make Her Praises Heard Afar, published by Booklovers Books, tells the story of New Zealand women overseas during the war. This fills a major gap in the historiography of New Zealand in World War One.
UPCOMING EVENTS
Monday 12th May 2:00PM
2025
Charlotte, Mary and Ellen: Friendship with Frisson
A discussion with Jane Tolerton
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Oakwell Hall Visitor Centre
Batley, WF17 9LG
West Yorkshire, England
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Kindly Sponsored by The Friends of Oakwell Hall
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Charlotte Brontë’s closest friendships—with Mary Taylor and Ellen Nussey—were far more complex than often portrayed.
In this lively and revealing discussion, biographer and researcher Jane Tolerton brings new light to these relationships, arguing that all three women have been misread by history. Was Mary really bossy—or simply the only one offering practical advice when all three faced poverty? Did Ellen’s loyalty mask deeper motives? And was Charlotte more emotionally and intellectually aligned with Mary than with Ellen?
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Discover how money, legacy, and ambition shaped the famous triangle, and why Charlotte’s memory became a battleground between her two friends. This is the untold story of passion, rivalry, and revision—where friendship sparks flew, and reputations were carefully managed.
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CONTACT
For any media enquiries, please contact Jane Tolerton:
Phone: 027-257-7835 | Email: info@booklovers.co.nz
