Lost World in the City   Bill Nagelkerke

 

Lost World in the City (2025)
Bill Nagelkerke, Copy Press (Nelson), 175pp
Pb, NZ$23, ISBN 978-0-47375-569-0 

Lost World in the City (2025) is the third volume in a series which Bill Nagelkerke began with The Ghosts on the Hill (2020) and continued in The Roar of the Lion (2025). Each novel stands alone but some of the characters reappear as time passes. The saga which began in 1884 has now reached 1914, with war imminent.

 

The narrator is Nell aged eleven. She reads widely and is irritated that all the adventure stories feature men with beards who have all the fun. ‘It’s not fair on girls,’ complains Nell to her brother Sandy, ‘Because there’s never a place for us in their expeditions. We have to wait around at home.’ These two young readers of Verne’s Journey to the Centre of the Earth and Conan Doyle’s The Lost World, live in Christchurch’s eastern suburb of Aranui, near Wainoni Park. Their father travels by tram each day to work in the city library. Meanwhile their mother is concerned that war is about to break out in Europe; she was deeply disturbed by the death of her brother Hugh in the South African War a decade earlier.

Nell and Sandy are sympathetic and ask their father what they can do.

‘We just have to keep on reminding her that she still has us, as well as the new baby on the way, and that it’s possible to be happy at the same time as being sad,’ Papa replies.

‘That’s hard,’ Sandy says.

 

Nell is inspired by attending a public lecture given at the library by a successful adventure story author, Jack Lytle (whose career began in The Roar of the Lion). She persuades her brother to come with her into Wainoni Park in search of a moa. The amusement park has been closed to the public since its owner Professor Alexander Bickerton returned to England but Nell is sure she has heard strange sounds from there.

What they find is much more interesting and puzzling. Can a moa eat a small boy? How can Nell and Sandy have met and talked to Professor Bickerton when he is still overseas? Has Nell possibly found a way of fulfilling her dream of flying over Christchurch?

Nell is beginning to believe her Mama’s warning ‘that we get so lost in stories that one day Sandy and I won’t be able to tell the difference between what’s real and what’s not.’  What is certain, however, is that the baby is arriving just as war is declared.  Their harried father sends them out to play in the street. (In those days, we are reminded, babies were usually born at home, and streets were slightly less dangerous places.)

 Of course, Nell and Sandy head straight for Wainoni Park again. What they find there, this time, is truly remarkable.

 

Bill Nagelkerke has written a charming and readable story that recreates the final days of the Wonderland amusement Park created by the talented Professor Bickerton. There is a real sense of wonder as past and present blend. Henry, from The Roar of the Lion, makes a surprising and uplifting appearance. Will he achieve his dream of zoo-keeping, or will he join the army? The differing views towards warfare held during the opening days of the Great War are well conveyed, offering plenty of scope for a sequel.

A Historical Note includes research advice for young readers who want to experience some of the magic of Bickerton’s Wainoni.

 

Trevor Agnew 

Jan 2026 [3813]