From the earliest records of exploration and encounter to the globalized, multicultural present, this compilation features New Zealand's major writing, from Polynesian mythology to the Yates' Garden Guide, from Allen Curnow to Alice Tawhai, and from Wiremu Te Rangikaheke's letters to Katherine Mansfield's notebooks. Including fiction, nonfiction, letters, speeches, novels, stories, comics, and songs, this imaginative selection provides new paths into New Zealand writing and culture.

An Unsettled History squarely confronts the issues arising from the Treaty of Waitangi in New Zealand today. Alan Ward writes lucidly about the Treaty claims process, about settlements made, and those to come. New Zealand’s short history unquestionably reveals a treaty made and then repeatedly breached. This is a compelling case – for fair and reasonable settlement, and for the rigorous continuation of the Treaty claims process through the Waitangi Tribunal. The impact of the past upon the present has rarely been analysed so clearly, or to such immediate purpose.

As a group of islands in the far south-west Pacific Ocean, New Zealand has a history that is steeped in the sea. Its people have encountered the sea in many different ways: along the coast, in port, on ships, beneath the waves, behind a camera, and in the realm of the imagination. While New Zealanders have continually altered their marine environments, the ocean, too, has influenced their lives. A multi-disciplinary work encompassing history, marine science, archaeology and visual culture, New Zealand and the Sea explores New Zealand’s varied relationship with the sea, challenging the conventional view that history unfolds on land. Leading and emerging scholars highlight the dynamic, ocean-centred history of these islands and their inhabitants, offering fascinating new perspectives on New Zealand’s pasts. ‘The ocean has profoundly shaped culture across this narrow archipelago . . . The meeting of land and sea is central in historical accounts of Polynesian discovery and colonisation; European exploratory voyaging; sealing, whaling and the littoral communities that supported these plural occupations; and the mass migrant passage from Britain.’ – Frances Steel

A History of New Zealand Literature traces the genealogy of New Zealand literature from its first imaginings by Europeans in the eighteenth century. Beginning with a comprehensive introduction that charts the growth of, and challenges to, a nationalist literary tradition, the essays in this History illuminate the cultural and political intricacies of New Zealand literature, surveying the multilayered verse, fiction and drama of such diverse writers as Katherine Mansfield, Allen Curnow, Frank Sargeson, Janet Frame, Keri Hulme, Witi Ihimaera and Patricia Grace. Written by a host of leading scholars, this History devotes special attention to the lasting significance of colonialism, biculturalism and multiculturalism in New Zealand literature. A History of New Zealand Literature is of pivotal importance to the development of New Zealand writing and will serve as an invaluable reference for specialists and students alike.

From 1906 to 1925 Quail Island, in Lyttelton Harbour, was the site of New Zealand’s leprosy colony. The colony began by accident, as it were, after the discovery of a leprosy sufferer in Christchurch. As further patients arrived from across the country, it grew into a controversial and troubled institution – an embarrassment to the Health Department, an object of pity to a few, a source of fear to many. This remarkable narrative reveals a little-known aspect of New Zealand’s past, shedding light on the treatment of some of society’s most marginal, unfortunate and isolated people. Written in lucid, compelling prose, The Dark Island heralds the arrival of a significant historical voice.

Explores Mansfield's identity as a (post)colonial writer in relation to her foremost reputation as a European modernistIn seeking new possibilities for alignments with, and resolutions to, the contradictory agendas implied by the terms '(post)colonial' and 'modernist', the essays in this volume address the clashing perspectives between Mansfield's life in Europe, where her troubled self-designation as the 'little colonial' became a fertile source of her distinctive brand of literary modernism, and her ongoing, complex relationship with her New Zealand homeland. The contributors investigate Mansfield's (post)colonial modernism in the context both of New Zealand settler-colonial fiction and of her European literary inheritance. Affinities with writers such as Edith Wharton and Robert Louis Stevenson reveal that 'home' can be a diasporic place, combining alienation with belonging. The volume also registers initial responses to the widened scope for Mansfield scholarship launched by the first two volumes of the new Edinburgh Collected Works of Katherine Mansfield.Includes:*Previously unpublished poetry and fiction*Reports of current research findings on Katherine Mansfield*An introduction by Janet Wilson, Professor of English and Postcolonial Studies, University of Northampton *Reviews of recent publications on Mansfield and her contemporaries