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Abstract
The idea that literary expatriation was a prevalent and often necessary phenomenon for early twentieth-century Antipodean writers is well established, as it is widely believed that New Zealand and Australia were places not conducive to the nurturing of literary talent. In order to succeed, writers were forced to leave for places with developed publishing infrastructure and sympathetic communities of like-minded people like London, choosing expatriation over failure or mediocrity at home. This study, which is based on an empirical investigation into the lives and publication records of New Zealand authors, questions this long-held assumption by emphasising the transnational elements involved in literary production. New Zealand writers were able to remain in New Zealand and still be successful because of the existence of the ‘colonial writing world'—a system of cultural diffusion, literary networks and personal interactions that gave writers access to all the cultural capital of Britain (and other hubs of empire) through the lines of communication established by colonial expansion. The opportunities provided by international connections have been largely overlooked or dismissed until very recently because of the persistent nationalist framework within which New Zealand literary history has been written.
Acknowledgements
This paper is derived from part of my doctoral project, for which I would like to acknowledge the financial and institutional support of the University of Canterbury (New Zealand), and my supervisors Dr Chris Connolly and Professor Patrick Evans.
Funding
I was financially aided by the University of Canterbury in the form of a Doctoral Scholarship, and the Wakefield Trust, as the recipient of the Edward Gibbon Wakefield Doctoral Scholarship.
Notes
[1] New Zealand Book Council, Eileen Duggan.
[2] Duggan to Palmer, 1926, MS Papers 801 2/2, Alexander Turnbull Library (hereafter ATL), Wellington.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Dougherty, Books and Boots, 69.
[5] Wild, ‘The Literary Periodical in New Zealand', 17.
[6] Victor Daley, ‘When London Calls’, Bulletin 8, 15 Dec. 1900, cited in Alomes, When London Calls, ix.
[7] Henry Lawson, ‘Pursuing Literature in Australia', Bulletin 9, 21 Jan. 1899, 2, cited in Pierce, Cambridge History of Australian Literature, 262.
[8] Pierce, Cambridge History of Australian Literature, 2.
[9] Bennett, A Sense of Exile, 1.
[10] Jones, ‘The Novel', 123, in revd 1998 edn, 135.
[11] ‘A Woman's Point of View', 15.
[12] Katherine Mansfield, Notebooks I, Margaret Scott, ed., 86, cited in Stafford, ‘Fashioned Intimacies’, 32.
[13] Curnow, ‘Introduction'.
[14] Curnow's brand of cultural nationalism was also associated with the poets Denis Glover, Charles Brasch, R.A.K. Mason, A. R. D. (Rex) Fairburn and prose writers Frank Sargeson and John Mulgan, although in reality the aims of this group were far from coherent. From the 1970s, feminist and Maori historians and representatives of other groups protested about their exclusion from this version of national identity. 1930s cultural nationalism was further deconstructed from the 1990s, by scholars such as Patrick Evans (Penguin History of New Zealand Literature and The Long Forgetting) and Stuart Murray (Never a Soul at Home).
[15] Ballantyne, ‘On Place, Space and Mobility’, 53.
[16] Furphy to A. G. Stephens, 30 May 1897, in Barnes, The Writer in Australia, 121.
[17] Henry Lawson, A Song of Southern Writers, 1892, cited in Lyons and Arnold, A History of the Book in Australia, 25.
[18] Eggert, Biography of a Book, 20.
[19] Lester, ‘Historical Geographies of British Colonisation', 97.
[20] Ballantyne, Webs of Empire.
[21] Stafford and Williams, Maoriland, 152.
[22] Calder, The Settlers' Plot.
[23] Hilliard, The Bookmen's Dominion, 2.
[24] Wevers, Reading on the Farm.
[25] Sturm, An Unsettled Spirit, 5.
[26] Phillips, ‘Musings in Maoriland', 527.
[27] Ronnie, Books to the People; Traue, ‘The Public Library Explosion'; Hurst, Music and the Stage; Scholefield, Newspapers in New Zealand; Rogers and Rogers, Turning the Pages; Wevers, Reading on the Farm; Griffith, and Harvey and Maslen, Book and Print in New Zealand. For more detail, see Bones, ‘A Dual Exile?', 24–33.
[28] New Zealand Department of Censuses and Statistics, New Zealand Official Yearbook, 1934, 239.
[29] Hillard, The Bookmen's Dominion; and Stafford and Williams, Maoriland, 152.
[30] Sinclair, A History of New Zealand, 221.
[31] Eddy and Schreuder, The Rise of Colonial Nationalism, 6.
[32] This is dealt with in a separate article. Bones, ‘New Zealand and the Tasman Writing World'.
[33] See Bones ‘A Dual Exile?', Appendix A, for a full list of publications. These figures exclude the work of Fergus Hume, who is considered an anomaly because of his unusually large output.
[34] Australia was in a similar situation at the very beginning of the twentieth century, though there was a small publishing industry already established there, but there are no similar figures easily available for Australia.
[35] Henry Lawson, A Song of Southern Writers, 1892, cited in Lyons and Arnold, A History of the Book in Australia, 25.
[36] den Hartog, ‘Australian Male Writers’, 231.
[37] Barnes, ‘Heaven Forbid', 409.
[38] McEldowney, ‘Publishing, Patronage and Literary Magazines’, 651–53.
[39] Barnes, ‘Heaven Forbid', 406. Stephens turned out to be wrong, as it sold 4,000 copies, mostly in Australia.
[40] Jane Mander, ‘N.Z. Authors and English Publishers’, Talk for Authors' Week, Mander papers, NZMS 535, Auckland Public Library (hereafter APL), 1.
[41] The median yearly income for 1926 (there was no census in 1931 due to the Napier earthquake) was £235, thus 10 shillings and sixpence represents just under an average day's wages. New Zealand Department of Censuses and Statistics, Incomes. It is not clear whether Mander is referring to British or New Zealand pounds here, but at least until 1930 they were more or less the same. In 1931 £100 = NZ$125, as ‘in the late 1920s the rate of exchange between Britain and New Zealand diverged from the parity which had long been customary'. Hawke, The Making of New Zealand, 151.
[42] C. R. Allen, letter to Pat Lawlor, 9 May 1934, Ref 77-067 7/2, ATL.
[43] Eileen Duggan, letter to Stanley Unwin, 27 Oct. 1948, Allen & Unwin papers, AUC 345/10, University of Reading Special Collections (hereafter URSC).
[44] Ursula Bethell to Frank Sidgwick, 5 Dec. 1929, Sidgwick & Jackson papers, MSS 142, 84–85, Bodleian Library Special Collections (hereafter BLSC), Oxford.
[45] Geoffrey de Montalk to Lawlor, 10 July 1930, Ref 77-067-3/1, ATL.
[46] McCallum, ‘Rollett, Hilda 1873–1970', Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, updated 22 June 2007.
[47] Sturm, An Unsettled Spirit, 2.
[48] She wrote regularly for the New Zealand Tablet ‘by way of serving her Catholic faith'. McKay, Eileen Duggan, 5.
[49] Belich, Paradise Reforged, 53.
[50] Barnes, ‘New Zealand's London', 8.
[51] Martyn Lyons, ‘Britain's Largest Export Market', in Lyons and Arnold, A History of the Book in Australia, 22.
[52] Ibid, 10.
[53] Ibid.
[54] A.G. Stephens to Joseph Furphy, 22 May 1897, cited in Barnes, The Writer in Australia, 119.
[55] Stanley Unwin, letter to Eileen Duggan, 31 March 1931, AUC 110/13, URSC.
[56] Belich, Paradise Reforged, 68.
[57] Robinson, History of the Post Office, 141.
[58] Wilson, William Satchell, 38.
[59] Sturm, An Unsettled Spirit, 97.
[60] Duggan to Palmer, 1936, MS Papers 801 2/5, ATL.
[61] Holcroft, Mary Ursula Bethell, 20.
[62] Trussell, Fairburn, 83.
[63] Monte Holcroft, Notebook, from 1923, MSX-0253, ATL. Statistics are from 1925 entries.
[64] From census data—see note 41.
[65] Sargeson, More than Enough, 172.
[66] R. A. K. Mason, written on the back of a letter from the Seddon Memorial Technical College, 19 Sept. 1923, MS 990/15/1, Hocken Library (hereafter HL), Dunedin, cited in Barrowman, Mason, 39.
[67] Barrowman, Mason, 58.
[68] Edith Lyttleton to Mr Skinner, 18 Feb. 1933, AUC 37/6, URSC.
[69] Scanlan, Road to Pencarrow, 181.
[70] Mander, ‘A London Letter'.
[71] Alan Mulgan, ‘Letters in NZ' no date, typescript, MS 224–31, ATL.
[72] Scanlan, Road to Pencarrow, 181.
[73] Again, the work of Fergus Hume is omitted from this information. Hume's 120 books had virtually no New Zealand content.
[74] ‘The Butler Cult at Home'.
[75] Mulgan, ‘Difficulties of the New Zealand Novelist'.
[76] Scott, The Unwritten Book, 143.
[77] Scott, Days that Have Been, 165; and Scott, The Unwritten Book, 143.
[78] Stafford and Williams, Maoriland, 35.
[79] Barnes, ‘Heaven Forbid', 408.
[80] Evans, The Long Forgetting, 62.
[81] Encyclopedia Britannica Online, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/416988/noble-savage.
[82] Stafford and Williams, Maoriland, 46.
[83] Phillips, ‘Musings in Maoriland' , 526.
[84] Sir Apirana Ngata was a poet as well as scholar and statesman and Stafford and Williams devote a chapter to him.
[85] Domett, Ranolf and Amohia; and Stafford and Williams, Maoriland, 36.
[86] Nelson Wattie, ‘Grace, Alfred Augustus’, Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, updated 1Sept. 2010.
[87] Lawrence Jones, ‘Chamier, George 1842–1915', Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, updated 22 June 2007.
[88] Satchell, The Land of the Lost.
[89] Brantlinger, Rule of Darkness, 8, cited in Wevers, Reading on the Farm, 196.
[90] ‘New chums’: the surly Scottish station-master says ‘Englishman, eh?—Well, we no employ new chums here!' Smyth, Jean of the Tussock Country, 25.
[91] Ibid., 20.
[92] Peacocke, The Guardian; and Kenny, The Rebel.
[93] Dalziel, ‘Enfranchisement of New Zealand Women'.
[94] Grossmann, Hermione, 200.
[95] Review of Home is Where the Heart is, Times Literary Supplement, 1732, 11 April 1935, 246.
[96] Review of Ponga Bay, Times Literary Supplement, 1100, 15 Feb. 1923, 110.
[97] Altrincham, Baron (Edward William Macleay Grigg), Review of Tussock Land, Times Literary Supplement, 121, 5 June 1904, 140.
[98] Review of Heather of the South, Times Literary Supplement, 1187, 16 Oct. 1924, 653.
[99] Jane Mander to Monte Holcroft, 23 Dec. 1932, MS Papers 1186/6, ATL.
[100] Jane Mander to Monte Holcroft, 9 May 1932, MS Papers 1186/6, ATL.
[101] Sturm, Terry, ‘Anthony, Frank Sheldon 1891–1927', Dictionary of New Zealand Biography (updated 22 June 2007).
[102] Cadey, Broken Pattern, 79.
[103] Ibid., 104.
[104] Ibid., 258.
[105] Mander, The Strange Attraction, 127.
[106] List included as Appendix B of Bones, ‘A Dual Exile?' Chapters 3 and 4 explore the demography and experiences of writers who left New Zealand, and their continued participation in the colonial writing world.