RELICS OF SAMUEL BUTLER

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27226, 18 December 1953, Page 12

RELICS OF SAMUEL BUTLER

MUSEUM APPROVES PURCHASE PAPERS AND SKETCHES OF “ MESOPOTAMIA ” Some hitherto unpublished manuscripts of Samuel Butler about his life at “Mesopotamia” will pass to the Canterbury Museum on the completion of negotiations begun in London by Mr A. C. Brassington. Butler’s literary executors, Dr. Geoffrey Keynes and Mr Brian Hill, are willing to sell the manuscripts and some sketches to the museum for £5O. Yesterday the Museum Trust Board agreed to accept the offer with funds from the Cartwright bequest. The manuscript amounts to eight sheets (13 pages). There are a map of “Mesopotamia” “with humorous annotations” marking huts and other features, a pen-and-ink drawing in Butler’s hand of his hut, and a holograph “list of things for the dray to bring up.”

Some of the manuscript was apparently reproduced in an early article by Butler called “Crossing the Rangitata” and included by H. A. Streatfield in “A First Year in Canterbury Settlement and Other Early Essays,” in 1914. Other pages may have been used in the preparation of “A First Year,” as certain passages appear word for word.

But at least two pages are believed not to have been published. The copyright is still owned by the executors, but Mr Brassington mentioned their content to the board yesterday These pages tell how Butler laid branches, snowgrass, and tussock beneath his groundsheet.—“lt is the wet from below that I fear; not the wet from above.” Butler added that he had not had “the ghost of a cold” since he had been in New Zealand. The narrative then describes the crossing of a rushing stream, with splendid feed for the horses on the other side. Butler describes tussocks and the way they can be used to tether a horse, though it may become entangled in other growth, Mr Brassington told the. board yesterday that from what he had seen of this material, it provided the best available evidence of what "Mesopotamia” looked like when Butler was there. Christchurch was fortunate in its Butler relics, Mr Brassington said The museum had his branding iron and fork, two water-colours made in England which had been presented by Mr H. T. Reeves, of Hororata, and six manuscript letters presented by Sir Hugh Acland. In addition, there were four privately-owned oil paintings by Butler.