Books | Michael Moore-Jones

Printing and Typography in New Zealand: A Short Bibliography

History of Printing in New Zealand — Endpaper of R A McKay’s “A History of printing in New Zealand 1830-1940”, created by the Wellington Club of Printing House Craftsmen in 1940. “The most beautiful book ever produced in this country?”

My latest obsession, as some of my recent essays here might attest. But I’m currently in the wrong country to be learning about New Zealand printing—and I would have found a short bibliography most helpful as I began to learn. Below are some of the sources I found particularly useful and interesting, in the rough order that I think it would have been most effective to have read them in.

But first, some background. Printing in New Zealand began as it did in Europe, out of theological necessity. The Church Missionary Society (CMS) operated the first presses out of Northland, and as Don McKenzie points out in his Oral Culture, Literacy & Print in Early New Zealand : The Treaty of Waitangi, the NZ case provides a fascinating look at a society moving from a primarily oral culture to a print-based one almost four hundred years after Europe went through the same shift. The first item ever printed in New Zealand was a pamphlet of catechisms in Maori, printed by Reverend William Butler Yate at Kerikeri in 1830. But as surviving copies show, Yate didn’t really know what he was doing with the printing press, and he soon went back to Sydney to have a professional print 1,800 (shoddy) copies of the Bible in Maori.

The first item ever printed in New Zealand — William Yate’s flawed pamphlet.

Four years after Yate’s botched attempt, William Colenso arrived at Paihia with a better printing press—and, more importantly, the knowledge of how to use it. (Don McKenzie mused on this: “Technology itself is nothing without a human mind…”) Within weeks of his arrival, after having some missing parts of his press re-made, he too had printed sheets of Maori catechisms, plus the first item in English: an announcement, with hindsight ironic, of the New Zealand Temperance Society. And two years later, in 1936, Colenso would start printing his run of 5,000 copies of sections of the Bible, the first full “book” printed in New Zealand. Colenso is today probably best remembered for being the printer of the Treaty of Waitangi, and for his record of the days and ceremonies surrounding the Treaty itself.

Robert Coupland Harding has been called (by McKenzie) “New Zealand’s first and most eminent typographer” (here’s a more recent summary of his life and work). Printing properly from the 1860s through the end of the century, Harding worked in the craft tradition of typography, culminating in his journal Typo. His international reputation in printing and typography was apparently significant, maybe presaging New Zealanders’ twenty-first century influence in global typography (I’m thinking of Kris Sowersby and his Klim Type Foundry, whose work I love and which I come across on more and more websites, among others).

Then there are the twentieth-century big names: Denis Glover and Leo Bensemann at The Caxton Press, and Robert “Bob” Lowry, first with the Auckland University College Students’ Association Press, and then later both Pelorus and Pilgrim presses. Numerous other private presses operated in the twentieth century (including McKenzie’s own Wai-te-Ata Press at Victoria University), but for sheer influence, Glover and Lowry get the credit.

With that too-brief summary, here’s the reading list I wish I’d had when I became interested in the topic:

A History of Printing in New Zealand, by R A McKay & Wellington Club of Printing House Craftsmen, 1940. First printed in a limited edition of 600 copies, this has been described as “the most beautiful book ever produced in this country.” It is interesting both for its content and for its quality. Includes various essays on aspects of early and contemporary printing in NZ, plus illustrations throughout.
A Book in the Hand: Essays on the History of the Book in New Zealand, edited by Penelope Griffith, Peter Hughes and Alan Loney, Auckland University Press, 2000. A fantastic set of essays on printing in NZ. I particularly enjoyed Donald Kerr on “Sir George Grey and his book collecting activities in NZ” (this was really great), Peter Hughes on Bob Lowry, and Alan Loney’s essay on typography.
Book and Print in New Zealand: A Guide to Print Culture in Aotearoa, edited by Penny Griffith, Keith Maslen and Ross Harvey, 1997. Essays on all aspects of printing and publishing in New Zealand. Probably one of the most thorough books I’m including here, but it doesn’t capture the lives of those involved as well as the others here—it seems more aimed at those interested in printing from an industry point of view, so if that’s you, start here.
Printing, bookselling & their allied trades in New Zealand circa 1900: extracts from the Cyclopaedia of New Zealand compiled as materials towards a history, compiled by D.F. McKenzie and K.A. Coleridge. The Wai-te-Ata Press, 1980. This is a “brain dump” of materials, itself cheaply printed; not so much a history as a way to find things to look up that you might not come across elsewhere. Research has gone further than this since, but I was still interested in this pamphlet as an example of McKenzie’s bibliographic research in NZ.
The National Library of New Zealand’s “Book History at the Turnbull” guide. An online resource with a huge number of links and sources, not all solely related to NZ. This is a great bibliography, but the reason I’m writing my own rather than directing readers to it is that I didn’t really know where to start with their list—not all their sources are equally useful.
Picking Up the Traces: The Making of a New Zealand Literary Culture 1932-1945, by Lawrence Jones. Victoria University Press, 2003. This is a great book, but isn’t focussed just on printing. The printing history is incidental to the thrust of the book, but this gives a much better idea of the role printing and typography played in the years of literary nationalism.
Oral Culture, Literacy & Print in Early New Zealand : The Treaty of Waitangi, by D F McKenzie. Victoria University Press, 1985. This really should be a classic in NZ, and I was ashamed that I hadn’t heard of it before this reading. It’s based on a speech McKenzie gave at the British Library, where he took up the NZ case of the Treaty of Waitangi to make a broader point about the meaning and nature of texts. The only reason it’s not higher in this list here is because it is primarily focussed on the text of the Treaty; but the early sections about Yate’s and Colenso’s printing efforts are brilliant.
PRINTING TYPES: New Zealand Type Design Since 1870, by Jonty Valentine. This is the brochure accompanying a 2009 exhibition at Auckland’s Objectspace. From Harding to Jack Yan, Warren Olds and Kris Sowersby, this is an inspiring look at typography in this country.
A Bibliography of the Literature Relating to New Zealand, by Thomas Hocken. Printed by J Mackay, Government Printer, Wellington, 1909. What it says on the tin. This was reprinted in 1979 so copies can be found quite easily.
Early New Zealand Books, online database by Auckland University. This is a great chronological list of materials published about and in New Zealand, with many digitised books.
The Lure of New Zealand Book Collecting, by Johannes Carl Andersen. Whitcombe & Tombs, 1936. Printing from a collector’s standpoint: covers books earlier than printing began in NZ, but includes a number of good sections on early books produced in/about NZ. I didn’t bother reading this right through, though—and it looks like no one else here in Oxford has either, because some of the pages were still uncut in the Bodleian’s copy.
The William Colenso Bibliography, 2013. This is a huge scholarly undertaking, but allows one to easily find further Colenso sources. I used it to find materials in the library here, including some of Colenso’s early printing.

Thanks to everyone who pointed me in the direction of some of these sources. I hope it proves useful to others.

My Borrowings from the Bodleian Libraries, 2018-19

At the beginning of my time in Oxford I came across this book, “Walter Pater’s reading: a bibliography of his library borrowings and literary references, 1858-1873.” Billie Andrew Inman reconstructed as best as possible Pater’s borrowings from a few of Oxford’s libraries that had kept records—and what resulted was an amazing portrait of the development of a mind.

Mostly for my own sake, I thought I’d publish here a list of my own requests from Bodleian Libraries between September 2018 and June 2019. The list is only partial: it does not include any books I’ve referred to on the open stacks of library shelves (so this is a major omission), nor books I’ve bought or which are held in college libraries. It only includes books I had to request from the Bodleian’s off-site, closed stack materials. But despite it being partial I think it might be a valuable reminder to me of my time in Oxford, and perhaps of interest to others.

Scrolling through this list myself, certain themes stand out clearly: an overriding obsession with New Zealand, and a growing interest in NZ’s early history; book history and the history of printing; and art, nationalism and cosmopolitanism, which I wrote about for my dissertation. Maybe others might see different themes and connections to which I’m blind. Certainly some of this reading has already appeared on this blog, for instance: In Search of Disappointment Island; Alexander Turnbull and New Zealand’s Library; and Printing and Typography in New Zealand: A Short Bibliography.

Apologies for the awkward formatting and sometimes truncated titles. This is the only form in which I could export my borrowings. And for those interested in the last line of each book, where the library is written: the Weston Library is the Bodleian’s rare books and manuscripts library, so is where I had to refer to older materials; the Radcliffe Camera is the history faculty’s library, but which I also used most often as a reading room; and the Sackler is the art library. Finally, there are some truly odd titles in here (something about Scottish peerage succession?): sometimes pamphlets would come bound in big groups, and the title here refers to the first item in the bundle, not necessarily the thing I was reading.

My Bodleian Borrowings, September 2018 – June 2019

The British colonization of New Zealand : being an account of the principles, objects, and plans of

Wakefield, Edward Jerningham, 1820-1879.

Return Date: 28/06/19, 15:07

Weston Mackerras (RR1)

Busby of Waitangi : H. M.’s resident at New Zealand, 1833-40 /

Ramsden, Eric, 1898-1962

Return Date: 28/06/19, 15:07

Weston Mackerras (RR1)

The New Zealanders. Illustrated: by George French Angas.

Angas, George French, 1822-1886.

Return Date: 28/06/19, 15:56

Weston Mackerras (RR1)

A select list of books printed between 1501 and 1800 in the library’s collection

Greenmeadows mount st. Mary’s seminary, libr.

Return Date: 27/06/19, 08:54

Bod Radcliffe Camera (Lower)

Advice on establishing a library. /

Naudé, Gabriel, 1600-1653.

Return Date: 27/06/19, 08:53

Bod Radcliffe Camera (Lower)

The fascinating folly : Dr. Hocken and his fellow collectors /

McCormick, E. H. (Eric Hall), 1906-1995.

Return Date: 27/06/19, 08:53

Bod Radcliffe Camera (Lower)

A grammar and vocabulary of the language of New Zealand /

Kendall, Thomas, 1778?-1832

Return Date: 28/06/19, 15:07

Weston Mackerras (RR1)

Description of a view of the Bay of Islands, New Zealand, and the surrounding country /

Return Date: 28/06/19, 15:07

Weston Mackerras (RR1)

Heaphy : Iain Sharp.

Return Date: 29/06/19, 10:03

Bod Radcliffe Camera (Lower)

Early imprints in New Zealand libraries : a finding list of books printed before 1801 held in librar

Return Date: 29/06/19, 10:03

Bod Radcliffe Camera (Lower)

Mass civilisation and minority culture /

Leavis, F. R. (Frank Raymond), 1895-1978.

Return Date: 30/05/19, 09:25

Weston Mackerras (RR1)

An account of New Zealand : and of the formation and progress of the Church Missionary Society’s mis

Yate, William.

Return Date: 24/05/19, 08:30

Weston Mackerras (RR1)

Journal of the Resolution’s voyage, in 1772, 1773, 1774, and 1775 : On discovery to the Southern Hem

Cook, James, 1728-1779.

Return Date: 24/05/19, 08:30

Weston Mackerras (RR1)

Some account of New Zealand.

Savage, John surgeon. pre20

Return Date: 21/05/19, 08:59

Weston Mackerras (RR1)

Extract of a letter … to an influential character here on the advantages to be derived from the es

Return Date: 21/05/19, 09:00

Weston Mackerras (RR1)

Narrative of a voyage to New Zealand, : performed in the years 1814 and 1815, in company with the Re

Nicholas, John Liddiard, author.

Return Date: 21/05/19, 09:00

Weston Mackerras (RR1)

Travels in New Zealand : with contributions to the geography, geology, botany, and natural history o

Dieffenbach, Ernst, 1811-1855.

Return Date: 21/05/19, 09:00

Weston Mackerras (RR1)

Narrative of a voyage to New Zealand, : performed in the years 1814 and 1815, in company with the Re

Nicholas, John Liddiard, author.

Return Date: 21/05/19, 09:00

Weston Mackerras (RR1)

Fauna of New Zealand : materials towards a fauna of New Zealand, Auckland Island, and Chatham Island

Travels in New Zealand

Return Date: 21/05/19, 16:37

Weston Mackerras (RR1)

The life of James K. Baxter /

McKay, F. M. (Francis Michael)

Return Date: 21/05/19, 09:45

Bod Radcliffe Camera (Lower)

Journal of Captain Cook’s last voyage to the Pacific Ocean, on Discovery : performed in the years 17

Rickman, John, officer on board the Discovery.

Return Date: 02/07/19, 13:20

Weston Mackerras (RR1)

An account of New Zealand : and of the formation and progress of the Church Missionary Society’s mis

Yate, William.

Return Date: 21/06/19, 08:30

Weston Mackerras (RR1)

The end of the history of art? /

Belting, Hans.

Return Date: 27/06/19, 12:20

Upper Gladstone Link

The new art history : a critical introduction /

Harris, Jonathan (Jonathan P.)

Return Date: 27/06/19, 12:20

Upper Gladstone Link

Critical terms for art history /

Return Date: 27/06/19, 12:20

Upper Gladstone Link

Art history : a critical introduction to its methods /

Hatt, Michael, 1960- author.

Return Date: 27/06/19, 12:20

Upper Gladstone Link

Orientalism /

Said, Edward W., author.

Return Date: 27/06/19, 12:20

Upper Gladstone Link

The art of art history : a critical anthology /

Return Date: 27/06/19, 12:20

Upper Gladstone Link

Image of the people : Gustave Courbet and the 1848 revolution /

Clark, T. J. (Timothy J.)

Return Date: 27/06/19, 12:20

Upper Gladstone Link

The social history of art /

Hauser, Arnold, 1892-1978.

Return Date: 27/06/19, 12:20

Upper Gladstone Link

Patterson : houses of Aotearoa.

Return Date: 06/05/19, 16:32

Sackler Library Desk

Whare karakia : Māori church building, decoration & ritual in Aotearoa New Zealand, 1834-1863 /

Sundt, Richard Alfred.

Return Date: 06/05/19, 16:32

Sackler Library Desk

Modernities : a geohistorical interpretation /

Taylor, Peter J. (Peter James), 1944-

Return Date: 06/05/19, 16:32

Sackler Library Desk

Planetary modernisms : provocations on modernity across time /

Friedman, Susan Stanford, author.

Return Date: 06/05/19, 16:32

Sackler Library Desk

William Mason : the first New Zealand architect.

Stacpoole, John.

Return Date: 29/04/19, 15:52

Bod Radcliffe Camera (Lower)

An introduction to New Zealand painting 1839-1967 /

Brown, Gordon H., 1931-

Return Date: 24/04/19, 09:08

Sackler Library Desk

Cosmopolitan style : modernism beyond the nation /

Walkowitz, Rebecca L., 1970-

Return Date: 24/04/19, 09:08

Sackler Library Desk

The elegant shed : New Zealand architecture since 1945 /

Mitchell, David.

Return Date: 24/04/19, 09:09

Sackler Library Desk

New Zealand architecture : from Polynesian beginnings to 1990 /

Shaw, Peter, 1946-

Return Date: 24/04/19, 09:04

Sackler Library Desk

Ruth, Roger and me : debts and legacies /

Dean, Andrew, 1988- author.

Return Date: 27/04/19, 16:17

Social Science Library

Hard frost : structures of feeling in New Zealand literature, 1908-1945 /

Newton, John, 1959- author.

Return Date: 21/05/19, 09:45

Bod Radcliffe Camera (Lower)

Architecture and its interpretation : a study of expressive systems in architecture /

Bonta, Juan Pablo.

Return Date: 21/05/19, 09:02

Sackler Library Desk

New Zealand architecture : from Polynesian beginnings to 1990 /

Shaw, Peter, 1946-

Return Date: 21/05/19, 09:03

Sackler Library Desk

Routledge handbook of cosmopolitanism studies /

Return Date: 21/05/19, 09:03

Sackler Library Desk

Nationalism and social theory : modernity and the recalcitrance of the nation /

Delanty, Gerard.

Return Date: 21/05/19, 09:05

Sackler Library Desk

State housing in New Zealand /

Firth, Cedric.

Return Date: 21/05/19, 09:06

Sackler Library Desk

The elegant shed : New Zealand architecture since 1945 /

Mitchell, David.

Return Date: 21/05/19, 09:06

Sackler Library Desk

Architecture, 1820-1970 /

Stacpoole, John, author.

Return Date: 21/05/19, 09:05

Sackler Library Desk

Constructing place : mind and matter /

Return Date: 21/05/19, 09:06

Sackler Library Desk

Cosmopolitan style : modernism beyond the nation /

Walkowitz, Rebecca L., 1970-

Return Date: 21/05/19, 09:06

Sackler Library Desk

English printed books to 1700 in the Alexander Turnbull library.

Alexander Turnbull Library.

Return Date: 29/06/19, 10:03

Bod Radcliffe Camera (Lower)

The oldest manuscripts in New Zealand /

Taylor, David M. (David Mortimer)

Return Date: 29/06/19, 10:09

Bod Radcliffe Camera (Lower)

Cook’s Strait, New Zealand: Compiled from the charts of Captain Cook and the more recent English and

Return Date: 01/07/19, 09:09

Weston RBMSS (Collect at RR1)

The book revolution /

Escarpit, Robert, 1918-2000

Return Date: 01/07/19, 09:22

Bod Radcliffe Camera (Lower)

Alexander Turnbull : his life, his circle, his collections /

McCormick, E. H. (Eric Hall), 1906-1995.

Return Date: 01/07/19, 09:23

Bod Radcliffe Camera (Lower)

The Turnbull : a library and its world /

Barrowman, Rachel, 1963-

Return Date: 01/07/19, 09:23

Bod Radcliffe Camera (Lower)

Meetings with remarkable manuscripts /

Hamel, Christopher de, author.

Return Date: 01/07/19, 09:23

Bod Radcliffe Camera (Lower)

Religio medici /

Browne, Thomas, Sir, 1605-1682.

Return Date: 28/06/19, 14:26

Weston Mackerras (RR1)

Some account of New Zealand.

Savage, John surgeon. pre20

Return Date: 28/06/19, 14:26

Weston Mackerras (RR1)

A narrative of a nine months’ residence in New Zealand in 1827 : together with a journal of a reside

Earle, Augustus.

Return Date: 02/07/19, 13:19

Weston Mackerras (RR1)

Art and illusion : a study in the psychology of pictorial representation /

Gombrich, E. H. (Ernst Hans), 1909-2001.

Return Date: 27/06/19, 12:21

Upper Gladstone Link

The architect’s handbook of professional practice /

American Institute of Architects, author.

Return Date: 18/06/19, 09:58

Bod Radcliffe Camera (Lower)

New Zealand in 1842; or, The effects of a bad government on a good country, in a letter to … lord

Return Date: 10/06/19, 15:43

Weston Mackerras (RR1)

Travels in New Zealand : with contributions to the geography, geology, botany, and natural history o

Dieffenbach, Ernst, 1811-1855.

Return Date: 10/06/19, 15:43

Weston Mackerras (RR1)

Travels in New Zealand : with contributions to the geography, geology, botany, and natural history o

Dieffenbach, Ernst, 1811-1855.

Return Date: 10/06/19, 15:43

Weston Mackerras (RR1)

Narrative of a voyage to New Zealand, : performed in the years 1814 and 1815, in company with the Re

Nicholas, John Liddiard, author.

Return Date: 10/06/19, 16:03

Weston Mackerras (RR1)

Narrative of a voyage to New Zealand, : performed in the years 1814 and 1815, in company with the Re

Nicholas, John Liddiard, author.

Return Date: 10/06/19, 16:03

Weston Mackerras (RR1)

Architect’s essentials of ownership transition /

Piven, Peter.

Return Date: 18/06/19, 09:57

Bod Radcliffe Camera (Lower)

The architect’s handbook of professional practice : update 2006 /

Return Date: 18/06/19, 09:57

Bod Radcliffe Camera (Lower)

Adventure in New Zealand, from 1839 to 1844 : with some account of the beginning of the British colo

Wakefield, Edward Jerningham, 1820-1879

Return Date: 17/06/19, 10:44

Weston Mackerras (RR1)

The dynamics of cultural nationalism : the Gaelic revival and the creation of the Irish nation state

Hutchinson, John, 1949-

Return Date: 18/04/19, 16:37

Sackler Library Desk

MIHI : collected poems /

Tuwhare, Hone, 1922-2008

Return Date: 12/04/19, 09:01

Bod Radcliffe Camera (Lower)

Les collections de l’Extrême-Orient : (Inde-Turkestan-Chine-Japon) /

Migeon, Gaston, 1861-1930.

Return Date: 16/04/19, 09:57

Bod Radcliffe Camera (Lower)

A new history of the humanities : the search for principles and patterns from Antiquity to the prese

Bod, Rens, 1965- author.

Return Date: 16/04/19, 09:58

Bod Radcliffe Camera (Lower)

Farewell to an idea : episodes from a history of modernism /

Clark, T. J. (Timothy J.)

Return Date: 16/04/19, 09:58

Bod Radcliffe Camera (Lower)

Modernities : a geohistorical interpretation /

Taylor, Peter J. (Peter James), 1944-

Return Date: 12/04/19, 09:00

Bod Radcliffe Camera (Lower)

Community and privacy : toward a new architecture of humanism /

Chermayeff, Serge, 1900-1996

Return Date: 08/04/19, 18:32

Sackler Library Desk

Art history after modernism /

Belting, Hans.

Return Date: 08/04/19, 18:32

Sackler Library Desk

Coast, country, neighbourhood, city /

Return Date: 08/04/19, 18:32

Sackler Library Desk

Spatialities : the geographies of art and architecture /

Return Date: 08/04/19, 18:33

Sackler Library Desk

The condition of postmodernity : an enquiry into the origins of cultural change /

Harvey, David, 1935-

Return Date: 27/04/19, 16:17

Social Science Library

Making peoples : a history of the New Zealanders : from Polynesian settlement to the end of the nine

Belich, James, 1956-

Return Date: 28/04/19, 13:19

Upper Gladstone Link

The New Zealand wars and the Victorian interpretation of racial conflict /

Belich, James, 1956-

Return Date: 28/04/19, 13:20

Upper Gladstone Link

Adventure in New Zealand, from 1839 to 1844 : with some account of the beginning of the British colo

Wakefield, Edward Jerningham, 1820-1879.

Return Date: 28/04/19, 13:02

Upper Gladstone Link

Katherine Mansfield’s New Zealand /

O’Sullivan, Vincent.

Return Date: 25/04/19, 08:42

Sackler Library Desk

Planetary modernisms : provocations on modernity across time /

Friedman, Susan Stanford, author.

Return Date: 24/04/19, 09:09

Sackler Library Desk

The Oxford handbook of global modernisms /

Return Date: 24/04/19, 09:09

Sackler Library Desk

Old Wellington days : an intimate diary, to which is appended the ships of Wellington the Wellington

Lawlor, Pat, 1893-1979.

Return Date: 24/04/19, 09:09

Sackler Library Desk

Te Ao Tawhito : the old world 3000 BC – AD 1830 /

Anderson, Atholl, author.

Return Date: 18/04/19, 16:36

Sackler Library Desk

Unseasonable youth : modernism, colonialism, and the fiction of development /

Esty, Joshua, 1967-

Return Date: 18/04/19, 16:36

Sackler Library Desk

Arts in New Zealand.

Return Date: 26/03/19, 15:23

Bod Radcliffe Camera (Lower)

Te ao hou : the new world.

Return Date: 26/03/19, 16:37

Bod Radcliffe Camera (Lower)

Te ao hou : the new world.

Return Date: 26/03/19, 16:37

Bod Radcliffe Camera (Lower)

Arts in New Zealand.

Return Date: 26/03/19, 16:42

Bod Radcliffe Camera (Lower)

Arts in New Zealand.

Return Date: 26/03/19, 16:42

Bod Radcliffe Camera (Lower)

Arts in New Zealand.

Return Date: 26/03/19, 16:42

Bod Radcliffe Camera (Lower)

The city of the Strait : Wellington and its province ; a centennial history /

Mulgan, Alan, 1881-1962

Return Date: 26/03/19, 15:24

Bod Radcliffe Camera (Lower)

Abel Janszoon Tasman’s journal of his discovery of Van Diemens Land and New Zealand in 1642 : with d

Tasman, Abel Janszoon, 1603?-1659.

Return Date: 01/04/19, 09:59

Weston David (RR3)

Remarks upon a pamphlet entitled “The Taranaki question, by Sir William Martin … late Chief Justic

Busby, James, 1801-1871.

Return Date: 21/03/19, 14:46

Weston David (RR3)

100

The Making of Wellington, 1800-1914 /

Return Date: 22/03/19, 09:26

Bod Radcliffe Camera (Lower)

101

An historical collection of the several voyages and discoveries in the south Pacific ocean.

Dalrymple, Alexander. pre20

Return Date: 21/03/19, 15:18

Weston David (RR3)

102

Journal of the Resolution’s voyage, in 1772, 1773, 1774, and 1775 : On discovery to the Southern Hem

Cook, James, 1728-1779.

Return Date: 21/03/19, 16:04

Weston Mackerras (RR1)

103

An account of the voyages undertaken by the order of His present Majesty for making discoveries in t

Hawkesworth, John, 1715?-1773.

Return Date: 20/03/19, 16:41

Weston Mackerras (RR1)

104

An introduction to New Zealand painting 1839-1967 /

Brown, Gordon H., 1931-

Return Date: 27/03/19, 10:13

Bod Radcliffe Camera (Lower)

105

The whale’s wake /

Morton, Harry.

Return Date: 19/03/19, 11:51

Bod Radcliffe Camera (Lower)

106

The legacy of guilt : a life of Thomas Kendall /

Binney, Judith.

Return Date: 19/03/19, 11:51

Bod Radcliffe Camera (Lower)

107

An outsider looks back : reflections on experience /

Wilson, Ormond, 1907-1988.

Return Date: 19/03/19, 11:52

Bod Radcliffe Camera (Lower)

108

[First lesson-book in Maori, pr. by the mission press in New Zealand].

Wesleyan Methodist missionary society. pre20

Return Date: 19/03/19, 11:52

Bod Radcliffe Camera (Lower)

109

Paradise reforged : a history of the New Zealanders from the 1880s to the year 2000 /

Belich, James, 1956-

Return Date: 27/03/19, 10:12

Bod Radcliffe Camera (Lower)

110

The people and the land : Te tangata me te whenua : an illustrated history of New Zealand, 1820-1920

Binney, Judith.

Return Date: 27/03/19, 10:13

Bod Radcliffe Camera (Lower)

111

Architecture, 1820-1970 /

Stacpoole, John, author.

Return Date: 08/04/19, 18:33

Sackler Library Desk

112

The work of revision /

Sullivan, Hannah, 1979- author.

Return Date: 08/04/19, 09:25

Bod Radcliffe Camera (Lower)

113

Distance looks our way : the effects of remoteness on New Zealand.

Sinclair, Keith, 1922-1993.

Return Date: 29/03/19, 15:54

Bod Radcliffe Camera (Lower)

114

Arts in New Zealand.

Return Date: 26/03/19, 15:23

Bod Radcliffe Camera (Lower)

115

Fretful sleepers and other essays /

Pearson, Bill, 1922-2002.

Return Date: 29/03/19, 15:54

Bod Radcliffe Camera (Lower)

116

Liberal nationalism /

Tamir, Yael, 1954-

Return Date: 29/03/19, 15:54

Bod Radcliffe Camera (Lower)

117

Nations and nationalism since 1780 : programme, myth, reality /

Hobsbawm, E. J. (Eric J.), 1917-2012.

Return Date: 29/03/19, 15:54

Bod Radcliffe Camera (Lower)

118

The location of culture : critical theory and the postcolonial perspective /

Bhabha, Homi K., 1949-

Return Date: 02/04/19, 13:38

Weston David (RR3)

119

Te ao hou : the new world.

Return Date: 26/03/19, 15:23

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120

Arts in New Zealand.

Return Date: 26/03/19, 15:23

Bod Radcliffe Camera (Lower)

121

Our colonies.

Return Date: 21/03/19, 16:04

Weston Mackerras (RR1)

122

The Auckland Islands : their eventful history /

McLaren, Fergus Blair, 1914-1941.

Return Date: 30/03/19, 11:43

Weston David (RR3)

123

Ned Kelly : 27 paintings by Sidney Nolan /

Melville, Robert, 1905-1986.

Return Date: 21/03/19, 20:41

Sackler Library Desk

124

An account of several late voyages and discoveries: I. Sir John Narbrough’s voyage to the South-sea

Return Date: 21/03/19, 14:46

Weston David (RR3)

125

A disquisition on the right of jurisdiction in peerage successions, particularly the peerage of Scot

Lockhart, Ephraim. pre20

Return Date: 21/03/19, 14:46

Weston David (RR3)

126

An account of the voyages undertaken by the order of His Present Majesty. : For making discoveries i

Hawkesworth, John, 1715?-1773.

Return Date: 21/03/19, 14:47

Weston David (RR3)

127

Sidney Nolan /

Rosenthal, T. G.

Return Date: 28/03/19, 08:30

Sackler Library Desk

128

Journal of a ten months’ residence in New Zealand /

Cruise, Richard A. (Richard Alexander)

Return Date: 20/03/19, 14:01

Weston Mackerras (RR1)

129

Narrative of a residence in various parts of New Zealand : together with a description of the presen

Heaphy, Charles, 1820-1881.

Return Date: 20/03/19, 14:02

Weston Mackerras (RR1)

130

A narrative of a nine months’ residence in New Zealand in 1827 : together with a journal of a reside

Earle, Augustus.

Return Date: 20/03/19, 14:02

Weston Mackerras (RR1)

131

The letters and journals of Samuel Marsden, 1765-1838 : senior chaplain in the colony of New South W

Marsden, Samuel, 1765-1838.

Return Date: 26/03/19, 15:23

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132

A history of New Zealand /

Sinclair, Keith, 1922-1993.

Return Date: 26/03/19, 15:23

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133

Te Wiremu : a biography of H. Williams.

Return Date: 26/03/19, 15:24

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134

The emigrants; early travellers to the antipodes

Bolitho, Hector, 1897-1974

Return Date: 26/03/19, 15:24

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135

Making peoples : a history of the New Zealanders : from Polynesian settlement to the end of the nine

Belich, James, 1956- .

Return Date: 18/03/19, 09:47

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136

The intellectual life of Edmund Burke : from the sublime and beautiful to American independence /

Bromwich, David, 1951- author.

Return Date: 15/03/19, 09:27

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137

Undoing the demos : neoliberalism’s stealth revolution /

Brown, Wendy, 1955- author.

Return Date: 14/03/19, 09:45

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138

The politics of aesthetics : the distribution of the sensible /

Rancière, Jacques.

Return Date: 06/03/19, 15:05

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139

A world elsewhere : a critical and biographical study of the European influence on the life and work

Quigley, Sarah.

Return Date: 11/03/19, 10:10

Weston David (RR3)

140

The Art of the Pacific Islands /

Return Date: 06/03/19, 09:40

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141

Pacific encounters : art & divinity in Polynesia 1760-1860 /

Hooper, Steven, 1950-.

Return Date: 10/02/19, 14:59

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142

Te Maori : Maori art from New Zealand collections /

Return Date: 12/02/19, 09:50

Bod Radcliffe Camera (Lower)

143

Art in Oceania : a new history /

Brunt, Peter William, 1955- author.

Return Date: 07/02/19, 16:52

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144

Italy in the age of the Renaissance : 1300-1550/

Return Date: 05/02/19, 09:11

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145

Sir Thomas More’s Utopia /

More, Thomas, Saint, 1478-1535.

Return Date: 04/02/19, 11:42

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146

Meetings with remarkable manuscripts /

Hamel, Christopher de, author.

Return Date: 04/02/19, 11:43

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147

Merchants of culture : the publishing business in the twenty-first century /

Thompson, John B. (John Brookshire)

Return Date: 04/02/19, 11:43

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148

A world elsewhere : a critical and biographical study of the European influence on the life and work

Quigley, Sarah.

Return Date: 06/02/19, 16:47

Weston David (RR3)

149

Introduction to Typography /

Simon, Oliver, 1895-1956.

Return Date: 23/01/19, 08:49

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150

An essay on typography /

Gill, Eric, 1882-1940.

Return Date: 30/01/19, 09:22

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151

The New Zealand gazette.

Return Date: 09/04/19, 09:10

Bod Upper Staffed Desk

152

An account of New Zealand : and of the formation and progress of the Church Missionary Society’s mis

Yate, William.

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Weston Mackerras (RR1)

153

Ko te Pukapuka o nga Inoinga o te Hahi o Ingarani me nga himene Weteriana : [Prayers of the Church o

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154

Letters to the rev. W. Yate /

Return Date: 19/02/19, 09:30

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155

The authentic and genuine history of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, New Zealand, February 5

Colenso, W. (William), 1811-1899.

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156

Selections from Typo : a New Zealand typographical journal, 1887-1897 /

Return Date: 10/02/19, 15:00

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157

The influence of D.F. McKenzie /

Return Date: 07/02/19, 16:48

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158

The life & achievements of Emeritus Professor Don McKenzie, 1931-1999 : the Cathedral of Old St. Pau

Return Date: 07/02/19, 16:39

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159

A history of printing in New Zealand, 1830-1940 /

McKay, R. A. (Richard Alexander), 1906-

Return Date: 15/02/19, 09:24

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160

Oral culture, literacy & print in early New Zealand : the Treaty of Waitangi /

McKenzie, D. F. (Donald Francis)

Return Date: 10/02/19, 14:59

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161

The lure of New Zealand book collecting /

Andersen, Johannes C. (Johannes Carl), 1873-1962.

Return Date: 10/02/19, 15:00

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162

Printing, bookselling & their allied trades in New Zealand circa 1900 : extracts from the Cyclopaedi

Return Date: 08/02/19, 09:18

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163

The Adelphi.

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Bod Upper Self-Collect

164

The Adelphi.

Return Date: 07/02/19, 09:21

Bod Upper Self-Collect

165

The criterion : a quarterly review.

Criterion (London, England : 1922)

Return Date: 07/02/19, 09:22

Bod Upper Self-Collect

166

Letters and art in New Zealand /

McCormick, E. H. (Eric Hall), 1906-1995.

Return Date: 13/02/19, 09:20

Bod Upper Self-Collect

167

Book & print in New Zealand : a guide to print culture in Aotearoa /

Return Date: 05/02/19, 09:11

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168

Voyaging worlds /

Salmond, Anne.

Return Date: 05/02/19, 09:11

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169

A book in the hand : essays on the history of the book in New Zealand /

Return Date: 04/02/19, 18:55

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170

Making peoples : a history of the New Zealanders : from Polynesian settlement to the end of the nine

Belich, James, 1956- .

Return Date: 10/02/19, 14:47

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171

The past is the present; it’s the future too : the temporal turn in contemporary art /

Ross, Christine, 1958- author.

Return Date: 01/03/19, 09:41

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172

Hard frost : structures of feeling in New Zealand literature, 1908-1945 /

Newton, John, 1959- author.

Return Date: 28/02/19, 09:31

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173

Spatialities : the geographies of art and architecture /

Return Date: 28/02/19, 09:33

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174

The Penguin history of New Zealand literature /

Evans, Patrick, 1944-

Return Date: 28/02/19, 09:33

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175

The exiles of Marcel Duchamp /

Demos, T. J.

Return Date: 22/02/19, 15:00

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176

British nuclear weapons and the test ban 1954-1973 : Britain, the United States, weapons policies an

Walker, John R., 1960-

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177

Captain Cook and the Pacific : art, exploration & empire /

McAleer, John, author.

Return Date: 14/02/19, 16:28

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178

Twelve months in Wellington, Port Nicholson; or, Notes for the public and the New Zealand company.

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179

Ko nga katikihama ewa, ka oti nei te wakamaori ki te reo o nu tireni.

Katikihama. pre20

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180

The Art of the Pacific Islands /

Return Date: 19/02/19, 09:30

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181

New Grub Street /

Gissing, George, 1857-1903.

Return Date: 30/01/19, 09:22

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182

Tiepolo pink /

Calasso, Roberto.

Return Date: 22/01/19, 10:02

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183

Printers’ marks : a chapter in the history of typography /

Roberts, W. (William), 1862-1940.

Return Date: 29/01/19, 09:35

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184

Image of the people : Gustave Courbet and the 1848 revolution /

Clark, T. J. (Timothy J.)

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185

Four centuries of fine printing : two hundred and seventy-two examples of the work of presses establ

Morison, Stanley, 1889-1967.

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186

An introduction to book history /

Finkelstein, David, 1964-

Return Date: 24/01/19, 09:41

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187

La stampa in Venezia dalla sua origine alla morte di Aldo Manuzio seniore. /

Castellani, Carlo, 1822-1897.

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188

Horizon : a review of literature and art.

Return Date: 10/01/19, 09:30

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189

Making peoples : a history of the New Zealanders : from Polynesian settlement to the end of the nine

Belich, James, 1956- .

Return Date: 11/12/18, 10:17

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190

New Zealand letters of Thomas Arnold the younger with further letters from Van Diemen’s Land and let

Arnold, Thomas, 1823-1900.

Return Date: 11/12/18, 11:04

Weston Mackerras (RR1)

191

Collected poems, 1933-1973 /

Curnow, Allen, 1911-2001.

Return Date: 04/12/18, 10:03

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192

Look back harder : critical writings 1935-1984 /

Curnow, Allen, 1911-2001.

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193

The cultural cold war : the CIA and the world of arts and letters /

Saunders, Frances Stonor.

Return Date: 04/12/18, 10:06

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194

Collected poems /

Baxter, James K.

Return Date: 04/12/18, 10:06

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195

Donald Judd : catalogue raisonné of painting, objects, and wood-blocks 1960-1974 = : Donald Judd :

Judd, Donald, 1928-1994.

Return Date: 26/11/18, 09:28

Sackler Library Desk

196

Erewhon /

Butler, Samuel, 1835-1902, author.

Return Date: 27/11/18, 09:55

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197

Man alone.

Mulgan, John, 1911-1945.

Return Date: 28/11/18, 08:51

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198

Abstract expressionism : the triumph of American painting.

Sandler, Irving, 1925-2018.

Return Date: 22/11/18, 16:44

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199

Journal of Katherine Mansfield /

Mansfield, Katherine, 1888-1923.

Return Date: 29/11/18, 09:36

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200

Charles Brasch : journals, 1939-1945 /

Brasch, Charles, author.

Return Date: 22/11/18, 16:44

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201

Paradise reforged : a history of the New Zealanders from the 1880s to the year 2000 /

Belich, James, 1956-

Return Date: 11/12/18, 10:17

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202

Passages in a wandering life.

Arnold, Thomas 1823-1900. pre20

Return Date: 11/12/18, 10:17

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203

The dynamics of cultural nationalism : the Gaelic revival and the creation of the Irish nation state

Hutchinson, John, 1949-

Return Date: 10/12/18, 09:28

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204

Fretful sleepers and other essays /

Pearson, Bill, 1922-2002.

Return Date: 03/12/18, 10:07

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205

An introduction to New Zealand painting 1839-1967 /

Brown, Gordon H., 1931-

Return Date: 07/12/18, 09:23

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206

The deepening stream : cultural influences in New Zealand /

Holcroft, M. H. (Montague Harry), 1902-1993

Return Date: 07/12/18, 09:20

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207

Picking up the traces : the making of a New Zealand literary culture, 1932-1945 /

Jones, Lawrence.

Return Date: 07/12/18, 09:20

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208

Donald Judd /

Raskin, David, 1968-

Return Date: 07/12/18, 09:41

Sackler Library Desk

209

The emigrants; early travellers to the antipodes

Bolitho, Hector, 1897-1974

Return Date: 03/12/18, 10:07

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210

Some recent American art /

Licht, Jennifer.

Return Date: 30/11/18, 09:42

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211

Pacific encounters : art & divinity in Polynesia 1760-1860 /

Hooper, Steven, 1950-.

Return Date: 17/11/18, 11:50

Sackler Library Desk

212

Art history in the wake of the global turn /

Return Date: 17/11/18, 11:50

Sackler Library Desk

213

Globalization and contemporary art /

Return Date: 17/11/18, 11:50

Sackler Library Desk

214

The global work of art : world’s fairs, biennials, and the aesthetics of experience /

Jones, Caroline A., author.

Return Date: 17/11/18, 11:50

Sackler Library Desk

215

Te Maori : Maori art from New Zealand collections /

Return Date: 17/11/18, 11:51

Sackler Library Desk

216

Art in Oceania : a new history /

Brunt, Peter William, 1955- author.

Return Date: 17/11/18, 11:51

Sackler Library Desk

217

Oceania : art of the Pacific Islands in the Metropolitan Museum of Art /

Kjellgren, Eric.

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Sackler Library Desk

218

Oceania and Australia : the art of the South Seas /

Bühler, Alfred, 1900-1981

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Sackler Library Desk

219

Repositioning Pacific arts : artists, objects, histories : proceedings of the VII International Symp

Pacific Arts Association (1974- ). International Symposium (7th : 2003 : Christchurch, N.Z.)

Return Date: 17/11/18, 11:49

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220

Charles Brasch : journals, 1945-1957 /

Brasch, Charles, author.

Return Date: 19/11/18, 09:45

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221

Renderings; critical essays on a century of modern art

Kozloff, Max.

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222

A world elsewhere : a critical and biographical study of the European influence on the life and work

Quigley, Sarah.

Return Date: 27/11/18, 16:29

Weston David (RR3)

223

Farewell to an idea : episodes from a history of modernism /

Clark, T. J. (Timothy J.)

Return Date: 22/11/18, 14:54

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224

The value of the humanities /

Small, Helen, author.

Return Date: 22/11/18, 16:41

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225

A new history of the humanities : the search for principles and patterns from Antiquity to the prese

Bod, Rens, 1965- author.

Return Date: 26/11/18, 09:16

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226

Bring out your dead : the past as revelation /

Grafton, Anthony.

Return Date: 22/11/18, 14:55

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227

Academic charisma and the origins of the research university /

Clark, William, 1953-

Return Date: 22/11/18, 16:42

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228

Angry penguins and realist painting in Melbourne in the 1940’s : Hayward Gallery, London 19 May to 1

Return Date: 26/11/18, 09:16

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229

Education of vision /

Return Date: 22/11/18, 16:44

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230

The universal dance : a selection from the critical prose writings of Charles Brasch /

Brasch, Charles.

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231

Present company : reflections on the arts /

Brasch, Charles.

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232

Ambulando : poems /

Brasch, Charles.

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233

Charles Brasch /

Bertram, James M.

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234

Nothing if not critical : selected essays on art and artists /

Hughes, Robert, 1938-2012.

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235

Enduring legacy : Charles Brasch, patron, poet & collector /

Return Date: 22/11/18, 10:10

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236

Indirections : a memoir, 1909-1947 /

Brasch, Charles, 1909-1973.

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237

Not for profit : why democracy needs the humanities /

Nussbaum, Martha Craven, 1947-

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238

Victoria University College : an essay towards a history.

Beaglehole, J. C. (John Cawte)

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239

Tapa : de l’écorce à l’étoffe, art millénaire d’Océanie : de l’Asie du Sud-Est à la Polynésie

Return Date: 19/11/18, 09:08

Sackler Library Desk

240

The Art of the Pacific Islands /

Return Date: 17/11/18, 11:49

Sackler Library Desk

241

Chinati : the vision of Donald Judd /

Stockebrand, Marianne.

Return Date: 13/11/18, 18:24

Sackler Library Desk

242

The Art of the Pacific Islands /

Return Date: 02/11/18, 09:39

Sackler Library Desk

243

First with the sun /

Mulgan, Alan, 1881-1962

Return Date: 02/11/18, 08:54

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244

Oil paintings /

Hodges, William, 1744-1797.

Return Date: 29/10/18, 18:20

Sackler Library Desk

245

Art/artifact : African art in anthropology collections /

Return Date: 31/10/18, 09:00

Sackler Library Desk

246

Te Maori : Maori art from New Zealand collections /

Return Date: 27/10/18, 11:10

Sackler Library Desk

247

The vocation of the scholar, tr. by W. Smith.

Fichte, Johann Gottlieb. pre20

Return Date: 17/10/18, 09:55

Weston Mackerras (RR1)

248

Real presences : is there anything in what we say? /

Steiner, George, 1929-

Return Date: 16/10/18, 09:12

Sackler Library Desk

249

Plato and Platonism, lectures.

Pater, Walter Horatio. pre20

Return Date: 16/10/18, 09:33

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250

The popular works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte, tr., with a memoir of the author by W. Smith.

Fichte, Johann Gottlieb. pre20

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251

Brian O’Doherty : collected essays /

O’Doherty, Brian, author.

Return Date: 06/10/18, 10:28

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252

Helmut Federle : American songline /

Return Date: 28/09/18, 08:54

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253

Chardin /

Chardin, Jean Baptiste Siméon, 1699-1779.

Return Date: 25/09/18, 09:13

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254

Giorgio Morandi /

De Salvo, Donna M.

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255

Morandi, 1890-1964 /

Return Date: 23/09/18, 11:53

Sackler Library Desk

256

Giorgio Morandi – late paintings /

Return Date: 23/09/18, 11:53

Sackler Library Desk

257

John McLaughlin paintings : total abstraction /

McLaughlin, John, 1898-1976, artist.

Return Date: 25/09/18, 09:08

Sackler Library Desk

258

The art of Australia

Hughes, Robert, 1938-2012.

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Sackler Library Desk

259

Encircling seas : an essay /

Holcroft, M. H. (Montague Harry), 1902-1993

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Sackler Library Desk

260

The deepening stream : cultural influences in New Zealand /

Holcroft, M. H. (Montague Harry), 1902-1993

Return Date: 30/08/18, 10:08

Sackler Library Desk

The Smell of New Zealand Books

Landfall New Zealand Charles Brasch, Oxford, books — The wonderfully textured paper of the early Landfalls.

Perhaps it’s obvious, from some of the essays I’ve recently posted here, that I’m missing New Zealand. As soon as winter seeped into Oxford my reading turned to home, and I began to spend each evening at the library with piles of books on New Zealand ordered from the closed stacks. (The Bodleian has a good pre-1950 collection of NZ-related books, I think because New Zealand publishers must still have fallen under the legal deposit). I decided not to return home over the Christmas break but instead to travel to Italy, Amsterdam and Berlin—and I took with me the only book from home I could find in time, a copy of the 1960 Penguin Book of New Zealand Verse, with Allen Curnow’s famed introduction.

Because I hadn’t brought any books with me from home when I moved here, I also began to buy second-hand books on New Zealand whenever they popped up in bookstores in Oxford or online. The first I bought was a set of the second volume of Landfall, from 1948. They arrived in the mail, I opened them—and the experience was for me the equivalent to the old Proustian Madeleine.

The smell! Immediately, I was back in my grandparents’ living room, foraging in their bookshelves for the not-seen-in-forty-years third-row-deep books. Instantly, it was summer in Wellington with pohutukawa in bloom down the street, and I felt again my fear of getting any sunscreen on the books. Or maybe it was winter, and I was in my Mum’s old villa beside the fire, youthfully dog-earing pages of books that now I think should be kept behind glass. Smelling the covers again now—those peculiarly knobbled, rough covers of the early years of Landfall—all the same memories and feelings flood back.

I remember reading (though cannot find the book here in Oxford to check the quotation) of John Mulgan’s first winter in the UK, and the arrival of a letter from home containing some leaves his parents had clipped from their back garden in Auckland. He described in his diary the feelings and memories they brought back, and the consequent longing for home. Well, my equivalent leaves are the leaves of Mulgan’s Man Alone, and of so many other touchstones of our culture. Their smells make what I’m missing so much more palpable.

But back to Landfall: there was something more to the smell of their pages than simply the knowledge that they were from home, or that the words they contained were significant to me. They smelled like New Zealand, of specifically what I have come to know New Zealand’s culture to smell like. Writing this seems odd, even laughable. Now, when books are digitally printed and publishers source paper from ever more similar (read: cheaper) suppliers, the material differences between books have been so reduced as to be barely worth commenting on. But it wasn’t always like that.

I don’t know if The Caxton Press found their paper in New Zealand (maybe someone can help me on this?), but I do know that the paper Glover and Bensemann printed on—especially their covers!—I haven’t seen or smelled elsewhere. Horizon, Cyril Connolly’s quarterly that Brasch and the others modelled Landfall on in the early days, feels and smells (not to mention looks) cheap in comparison. Partly this may have been war shortages limiting materials; but more likely, I just don’t think the same sense of art was given to their printing as was given to Landfall.

Many important New Zealand books were printed in England (many still are), so this thought of a specific smell to New Zealand books can’t extend too far. Mulgan’s Man Alone was printed at the start of the war in the UK, and few copies even made it to New Zealand. John Beaglehole’s journals of Cook were published by the Hakluyt Society in London. But even then, I wonder if New Zealand dust smells differently, peppering the pages in an air not to be found elsewhere. After all, is the smell books acquire over time not simply the condensed smell of the air in which they live?

I won’t take those thoughts further (smells slip away the moment they’re put in words). But to any friends who catch me awkwardly lifting Landfall too frequently to my nose, let these thoughts suffice as an (admittedly odd) explanation.

Tell Them of Battles, Kings and Elephants by Mathias Enard

Fitzcarraldo Editions, Mathias Enard, Tell Them of Battles, Kings and Elephants, Charlotte Mandell

What if cultures were not as hermetic as we sometimes imagine them to be? What if the modern foundations of “Western culture” were based, in fact, on influences from the “East”—and vice versa? What if, let us imagine, someone as renowned as Michelangelo had travelled to somewhere like Constantinople—had built there a bridge, both literal and metaphorical, had seen the Hagia Sophia, had read at Ottoman Sultan Bayezid’s library—and had come back to Rome filled with the grandeur of all he had seen? That is precisely Mathias Enard’s premise with this novella, first published in French in 2010 by Actes Sud and in English in 2018 by Fitzcarraldo Editions.

The young Michelangelo in 1506 is invited by the Sultan to design a bridge over the Golden Horn. This there is historical evidence for. Giorgio Vasari mentions it, Michelangelo’s friend Ascanio Condivi recounts it, and, even more compellingly, Leonardo da Vinci’s designs for exactly such a bridge (never built) still survive at the Museum of Science in Milan. A sketch for a bridge in the Ottoman archives was recently attributed to Michelangelo, but is not definite. The facts Enard truly has, and which he seems to structure the story around, are letters from Michelangelo to his brother Buonarroto, as well as sketches and plans of the Hagia Sophia sent to Rome. These are quoted intermittently in the story, but seem to be where Enard’s imagination leaped off from.

I first heard of Mathias Enard with his novel Zone, famously written in a single sentence. I haven’t read it, and perhaps Tell Them of Battles was meant for me, an easier read as a way in to Enard’s imagination and his reverse-Orientalism. The novella is easy to read, enticing, and I spent perhaps as much time researching Michelangelo and Constantinople after finishing the book as I did reading it (not copious amounts of time, as I read the book in two sittings).

Fitzcarraldo Editions is publishing what I believe is some of the best contemporary fiction and non-fiction, but something I’ve noticed is at times a strange ordering to the texts—almost over-vigorous editing. Here, Tell Them of Battles begins with a sub-plot, a non-consummated affair Michelangelo has with an androgynous dancer. The text is here the most overtly “literary” in the novel (“Night does not communicate with the day. It burns up in it. Night is carried to the stake at dawn,” the book begins), but it takes time for this storyline to develop, with it interspersed almost evenly throughout the text. It seemed to me that it had been written in a different order and edited later, feeling by the end slightly stilted. And this is the same feeling I had with the concurrent storylines in Dan Fox’s Limbo and Joshua Cohen’s Attention, both also published by Fitzcarraldo in late 2018. A minor gripe, but the publishing house’s style and its founder Jacques Testard’s preferences seem maybe a little too visible through these different books.

Enard does what fiction does best, imagining alternative histories and lives. That he does so with an implicit project as his aim—a kind of counter-Orientalism—seemed strange to me at first but, having read this book, makes more sense. It is not a totalising vision of world cultures, collapsing one into another in order that we can see a single “world culture”. I think it’s far more subtle than that, showing how individual lives and even individual encounters subtly and softly nudge what cultures are and what they mean. This I find appealing—but it is secondary, because Tell Them of Battles is simply imaginative and enjoyable to read.