Abstract: This thesis examines the ways the Gothic, as an aesthetic mode, is used to manage the spatial and conceptual boundaries of the farm in New Zealand settler literature, predominantly from the late 19th century to the early 20th century. I argue that settler literature frequently uses the Gothic mode’s capacity to communicate instability to problematise the boundaries of the New Zealand farm in ways that challenge the ecophobic binaries that uphold New Zealand’s Arcadian myth.