[4] Her father, Robert William Weston, was a Scottish agriculturalist, who immigrated to New Zealand from New South Wales in the 1860s and became one of Whangārei's pioneer settlers.
[2] Ko Meri featured a relationship between a half-Māori half-Pākehā woman named Mary Belmain and an Englishman.
"[11][12] Like other colonial writers at the time, particularly those part of the Māoriland movement, Weston was inspired by and adopted Māori traditions and legends.
[1] Joan Stevens said in 1966 that the belief that the Māori people were doomed enabled Weston to "dignify the Maori in fiction by giving him tragic stature".
[17] British newspapers such as The Graphic and The Morning Post praised the novel for its exotic setting and realistic depiction of Māori.
[14] Weston also sent a copy to William Gladstone, then the prime minister of the United Kingdom, who wrote in response: "There are few subjects of more interest than the present relations of the aboriginal peoples to creation.
"[18] By contrast, The Press was dissatisfied with the lead character's return to the "condition of the primitive Maori", suggesting "it is difficult to conceive such a civilised creature as the heroine 'going back', except under stress of madness", and concluded that "one cannot commend [the book] for any special merit".
She found it difficult to obtain work until the Jameson Raid took place in South Africa over the New Year weekend of 1895–96, at which point she had an article on the subject accepted by William Ernest Henley, then editor of the New Review magazine.
[23] Constance Barnicoat said of her: "Over her well-known non de plume brilliant and sometimes vitriolic articles frequently appear, even in the pages of the most exclusive magazines".