Katherine Mansfield in the News

I initially planned to write this week about a sixteenth-century document I happened upon in the A. H. Reed provenance files. This weekend, however, is shaping up to be a rather hectic one, so I will instead keep it short by noting some recent news regarding one of New Zealand's most celebrated literary figures, Katherine Mansfield (1888–1923), to go along with the discovery of a lost Mansfield story reported on The Fine Books Blog and elsewhere late last month.

~ Katherine Mansfield Treasure Trove Comes to the Turnbull
The Alexander Turnbull Library has recently acquired a substantial Mansfield archive previously owned by the family of her second husband John Middleton Murry (1889–1957). Dr Fiona Oliver, Curator of New Zealand and Pacific Publications, believes the collection to be 'the last known collection of Mansfield material in private hands'.

For more information, follow this link.

~ Katherine Mansfield Texts Added to the New Zealand Electronic Text Centre
The Journal of Katherine Mansfield and the second volume of The Letters of Katherine Mansfield, both edited by Murry, are now available on-line through the NZETC.

Mansfield, 1913

Early Printing for Te Wiki o te Reo Maori

Today (Wednesday) marks the mid point of Maori Language Week (Te Wiki o te Reo Maori). The theme this year is arohatia te reo (to cherish the language). As such, this week's post highlights six of the taonga (treasure, anything prized) among the early books printed partly or fully in the Maori language found in the Heritage Collections, Dunedin City Library.

Besides offical government publications, the majority of early printed material in New Zealand was produced by missionary societies, and therefore consisted of language aids and religious texts. I have selected three of each, which are described below. But first, typophiles (and bibliophiles generally) might be interested in the unique way that William Colenso (1811–1899), the missionary printer who printed the first substantial book in New Zealand, arranged his type cases:*

Reproduced from D. F. McKenzie's Oral Culture, Literacy & Print
in Early New Zealand (Wellington, 1985)

'For as the Maori language', wrote Colenso, 'contained only 13 letters (half the number in the English alphabet), I contrived my cases so, as to have both Roman and Italic characters in the one pair of cases.... Such an arrangement proved to be a very good one while my compositing was confined to the Maori language only; but when I had any English copy to compose it was altogether the reverse!... Fortunately, this occurred but rarely' (quoted in McKenzie, p. 25).

Grammars & Dictionary

Samuel Lee and Thomas Kendall. A Grammar and Vocabulary of the Language of New Zealand. London: Church Missionary Society, 1820.

As a missionary to New Zealand, Thomas Kendall (1778–1832) was in an ideal position to gather information on the Maori language. With the Rev. Samuel Lee (1783–1852), professor of Arabic and later of Hebrew at Cambridge, he compiled the first book that attempted to lay down the fixed principles of the language in 1815. Five years later this was expanded to include a 100-page vocabulary.

The 1820 edition of the grammar was issued in two versions, one printed on fine paper and the other on coarse paper. The fine paper version was mainly for circulation in England to spark interest in the work of the Church Missionary Society. The coarse paper version was printed for the Society’s schools in New Zealand and 500 copies were published.

Robert Maunsell. Grammar of the New Zealand Language. Auckland: Printed and Published by J. Moore, 1842.

This grammar was written by Robert Maunsell (1810–1894) in 1841–1842, encouraged by the support of prominent figures including the Governor’s private secretary (James Coates), Sir William Martin (ca. 1807–1880), the first Chief Justice of New Zealand, and George Augustus Selwyn (1809–1878), first Anglican Bishop of New Zealand. This support resulted in the work being printed in Auckland by the printer contracted to the government, rather than by the Church Mission Press at Paihia. Freed from the influence of the Northern District, which controlled mission printing and translating, Maunsell took tentative steps at reforming Maori orthography and adopting (in preference to the northern Ngapuhi dialect) the conventions of the Waikato dialect, which was widely understood and had retained its purity. 

3,000 copies were printed at Maunsell’s expense and issued in four parts.

William Williams. A Dictionary of the New Zealand Language and a Concise Grammar. Paihia: Church Missionary Society, 1844.

Although some early dictionaries were just simple word lists, Colenso and the missionary-linguist William Williams (1800–1878) wrote full definitions in English for head words, provided clear indications of noun and verbal usages and gave sample sentences for most.

In his Books in Maori, Phil Parkinson notes that work began on the first Maori dictionary in 1837, when Colenso printed a 12-page section that was never published (Parkinson 217). 'When the Committee of Missionaries renewed its decision to print the grammar', Parkinson continues, 'Colenso wrote to the CMS on 26 July 1842 of his concerns about its lack of usefulness to Maori and the "hindrance" of having to do such "un-missionary work"'. Colenso suggested it would be better printed in England, but his fellow missionary printer (and successor), John Telford, disagreed, and was set the task of printing the dictionary.

The dictionary was compiled by William Williams and printed in an edition quantity of 550 copies. Williams's dictionary proved so popular that subsequent editions appeared in 1852, 1871, 1892, and several in the twentieth century (Parkinson 217).

The copy in the Dunedin City Library is inscribed by Bishop Selwyn.

The Bible in Maori

Ko te tahi wahi o Te Kawenata Hou o Ihu Karaiti te Ariki, to tatou Kai wakaora: me nga upoko e waru o te pukapuka o Kenehi: ka oti nei te wakamaori ki te reo o Nu Tirani. Hirini [Sydney]: Kua oti te ta e Te Tipene raua ko Te Toki, 1833.

The third published translation of any biblical scripture into Maori and among the ten earliest printed works in the Maori language. In 1814 the Church Missionary Society founded its New Zealand Mission. James Shepherd, one of its missionaries, began to translate portions of the Bible into Maori, approximately ten years later. While visiting Sydney in 1827, another missionary, Richard Davis, arranged for the New South Wales Auxiliary of the British and Foreign Bible Society to print 400 copies of a thirty-one-page volume of extracts. A second volume appeared in 1830, and expanded to 170 pages in 1833. The second and third volumes were also printed in Sydney, under the direction of the missionary William Yate (1802–1877) who, in 1830, produced Ke te katekihama III, a six-page edition of the third catechism in Maori and the first work printed on New Zealand soil.

Beginning of the Gospel of John

Ko te Kawenata Hou o to tatou Ariki te Kai Wakaroa a Ihu Karaiti. Paihia: He mea ta i Perehi o nga Mihanere o te Hahi o Ingarani, 1837.

On 17 February 1835, William Colenso produced his first piece of printing in New Zealand: a 16-page translation of the Epistles of Paul to the Philippians and to the Ephesians. Two years later, he finished the much more ambitious project of printing the first complete New Testament in Maori, which was translated primarily by William Williams.

The first copies of an edition of 5,000 were issued after binding the following year (Parkinson 44). According to the New Zealand Dictionary of Biography, 'Maori demand was high: a Maori leader in Kaitaia sent a messenger for a copy, bearing the only gold sovereign Colenso had seen in the country'.

Beginning of the Book of Genesis

Ko te Paipera Tapu, ara, Ko te Kawenata Tawhito me te Kawenata Hou: He mea whakamaori mai no nga reo i oroko-tuhituhia ai. Ranana [London]: He mea ta ki te Perehi a W. M. Watts, ma te Komiti ta Paipera mo Ingarangi mo te Ao Katoa, 1868.

Ko te Paipera Tapu is the first complete Maori Bible. The initial request for a complete Bible in the Maori language was made by the Church Missionary Society in 1862. The work is based on Maunsell’s translation of the Old Testament and William Williams’s version of the New Testament. It was revised by George Maunsell, Elizabeth Colenso (1821–1904), and Bishop Selwyn, who saw the Bible through the press for the British and Foreign Bible Society (Parkinson 716).

Copies arrived in New Zealand from England in 1869. The Bible was made available in three different bindings: red sheep, speckled calf, and red morocco.

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For further reading:

P. G. Parkinson. Books in Maori, 1815-1900: An Annotated Bibliography = Nga Pukapuka Reo Maori, 1815-1900. Auckland: Reed Publishing, 2004.

H. W. Williams. A Bibliography of Printed Maori. Wellington: A. R. Shearer, Government Printer, 1975; first published in 1924 and supplemented in 1928.

D. F. McKenzie. Oral Culture, Literacy & Print in Early New Zealand: The Treaty of Waitangi. Wellington: Victoria University Press, 1985.

J. McRae. 'From Maori Oral Traditions to Print' in Book & Print in New Zealand: A Guide to Print Culture in Aotearoa edited by Penny Griffith, Ross Harvey and Keith Maslen. Wellington: Victoria University Press, 1997.

J. McRae, 'Maori Oral Tradition Meets the Book'; D. Keenan, 'Aversion to Print? Maori Resistance to the Written Word'; and P. Lineham, 'Tampering with the Sacred Text: The Second Edition of the Maori Bible' in A Book in the Hand: Essays on the History of the Book in New Zealand edited by Penny Griffith, Peter Hughes and Alan Loney. Wellington: Auckland University Press, 2000.

Peter Wells. The Hungry Heart: Journeys with William Colenso. Auckland: Vintage, 2011.

* Colenso's cases are also reproduced on the Alembic Press website, which includes case layouts for Scottish, Vietnamese, Irish, and a host of other languages.

Petition to Save the Mendham Collection

The following was posted on Exlibris-l on 19 July. I encourage everyone to please not only sign the petition, but to also circulate it far and wide in an effort to save this historic library.

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Dear colleagues,

I am writing to ask for your support for a campaign by the University of Kent and Canterbury Cathedral to save the Mendham Collection, a historic library of manuscripts and printed material.

Its founder, Joseph Mendham (1769-1856), was an Anglican vicar and, in the words of the Dictionary of National Biography, a ‘religious controversialist’.

The collection was given to the Law Society in the 1860s, and then loaned by them to the University of Kent and Canterbury Cathedral in 1984. You can browse through the collection's holdings on the University's library catalogue by looking up the keyword 'Mendham'.

Although we have an agreement with the Law Society until the end of 2013, they have suddenly decided to sell the most valuable items at auction to plug a hole in their finances. On Wednesday, Sotheby's took away about 300 of the most valuable books.

Colleagues in and beyond Kent are extremely distressed by this and are hoping to draw attention to the plight of the collection. We are entreating the Law Society to pause so that we can try to find a way to preserve the collection intact for current and future researchers. We have sympathy for the Law Society's predicament but are nonetheless horrified that this historic collection is to be sacrificed.

Yesterday, we launched a petition: please add your signature if you would like to help us to secure the future of the Mendham Collection.

Sincerely yours,

Alixe

Dr Alixe Bovey
Chair, Mendham Collection Task Force
Director of the Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies & Lecturer in Medieval History
School of History
University of Kent

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Images of the books being removed and packed up can be found here.

Rare Book Week in Melbourne

Kay Craddock's Bookshop
156 Collins St.

Next month sees the launch of the inaugural Melbourne Rare Book Week in conjunction with the biennial University of Melbourne Cultural Treasures Festival and the 39th ANZAAB Antiquarian Book Fair.

Being held from 19 to 29 July, Rare Book Week includes 'a series of informative and entertaining lectures, events and exhibitions celebrating the book and the joy of collecting.... If you are curious about books and what makes them collectable, and fascinated by ephemeral items that capture the spirit of a time, or you are drawn to prints that illustrate our history and maps that reflect the peaks and perils of travel and adventure, then Melbourne is the place to be in July'.

A full list of events, all but one of which are free to attend, is available on the Rare Book Week programme page.

Rare Book School 2013, Dunedin

The eighth Australian and New Zealand Rare Book School is being hosted next year by the Centre for the Book, University of Otago, in Dunedin, New Zealand.

Running from 28 January to 1 February 2013, the three courses on offer are:

The Business of Books in Britain (James Raven)
This course offers broad consideration of developments in historical bibliography and what has become known as ‘the history of the book’ by focusing on the productive transformation of printing, publishing and bookselling in Britain during the last two hundred years or so of the dominance of the manual printing press (full description).

James Raven is Professor of Modern History at the University of Essex. Author of numerous articles and books, he wrote The Business of Books: Booksellers and the English Book Trade 1450–1850 in 2007, which went on to win the 2008 De Long prize. He and Leslie Howsam have just published an edited collection of essays on trans-Atlantic book history, Books between Europe and the Americas: Connections and Communities, 1620–1860 (2011).

English Paleography, 1500–1700 (Heather Wolfe)
This course provides an intensive introduction to handwriting in early modern England, with a particular emphasis on English secretary hand. Working from digital images, color photocopies, and manuscripts, participants will be trained in the accurate reading and transcription of secretary, italic, and mixed hands (full description).

Heather Wolfe is Curator of Manuscripts at the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, DC. Author of numerous articles on early modern manuscripts, she has most recently edited The Literary Career and Legacy of Elizabeth Cary (2007) and The Trevelyon Miscellany of 1608: A Facsimile Edition of Folger Shakespeare Library MS V.b.232 (2007). She has taught paleography several times at Rare Book School in Charlottesville, VA.

Exhibitions: The Art and Practicalities (Donald Kerr and Richard Overell)
This course examines the philosophy behind exhibitions, particularly sourcing ideas and proposals on what to exhibit and when, along with curatorial issues such as selecting items to display, assessing lighting and cabinet sizes, and designing captions and labels, through to making cradles for books, press release writing, and ensuring the narrative is not only told, but suits the audience (full description).

Donald Kerr is Special Collections Librarian at the University of Otago, author of numerous articles, and biographer of Sir George Grey. He is co-director of the University of Otago Centre for the Book and President of the Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand.

Richard Overell is Rare Books Librarian at Monash University, where he has been the curator of about 100 exhibitions ranging from 'The Restoration' to 'Ephemera'.

Application forms will be available shortly. For a course brochure (PDF), tuition costs, contact details and other information, please visit the Centre for the Book Rare Book School website.

UPDATE: Application forms are now available.

Exhibition Announcement: 'Our Will & Pleasure: Royal Autographs, Letters and Memorabilia of the British Monarchy'

The exhibition 'Our Will & Pleasure: Royal Autographs, Letters and Memorabilia of the British Monarchy' opened last night in the Reed Gallery, Heritage Collections, Dunedin City Library. This is the first exhibition where items from the Reed Autograph Letters & Manuscripts Collection have taken centre stage, and it is timed to coincide with the wider events celebrating the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II.

On display are more than twenty manuscripts with a royal connection ranging in date from a 1704 document signed by Queen Anne, to the signatures of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, from their visit to the Dunedin Public Library in 1954. Some of the items are accompanied by cartes de visite and printed ephemera. Three cases are dedicated to royal tours of New Zealand, from the 1901 visit by the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York, to the 1980 visit by the Duke and Duchess of Kent.

Supporting material includes letters and documents by six Prime Ministers from Sir Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford, to W. E. Gladstone (writing to Sir Anthony Panizzi). Three early histories of Britain and its monarchs round out the exhibition.

The physical exhibition closes on 19 August. If visiting Dunedin before then, please do call in.

Exhibition Announcement: Joking Aside: Caricatures, Cartoons and Comic Illustrations

Joking Aside: Caricatures, Cartoons and Comic Illustrations
Auckland Central City Library
28 March to 15 July 2012

Though over a month in, there is still plenty of time for locals (and some non locals) to check out the latest exhibition at Auckland City Library.

[From the Auckland City Libraries website]

This scintillating new exhibition features illustrations from the eighteenth to twentieth century, produced by international and NZ artists.

The focus is on the development of visual satire for political or social purposes, with work from William Hogarth, George Cruikshank, the artists of Punch magazine and well known NZ cartoonists like David Low and Gordon Minhinnick.

For readers who cannot make it to Auckland, some highlights from 'Joking Aside' are available on the library website.