LIBRARY APPEALS FOR FUNDS

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28434, 14 November 1957, Page 11

LIBRARY APPEALS FOR FUNDS

May Buy Mansfield Papers

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, November 13. The Turnbull Library is appealing for money to help it to buy more Katherine Mansfield manuscripts at an auction to be held in London this month. The Friends of the Turnbull Library, an incorporated society working for the welfare and development of the library, today launched an appeal to the public for contributions toward the purchase of these original manuscripts. It says these manuscripts, to be auctioned on November 26. must be regarded as one of the most important groups of New Zealand literary material ever to come on the market. The manuscripts have become available as a result of the death last March of John Middleton Murry, the former husband of Katherine Mansfield, the statement says. They comprise her workbooks, journals, and unpublished fragments of a novel and other text, invaluable to any student of her work in the years to come.

“The friends therefore start this fund off with a sum of £lOO, and invite all interested persons 1 and institutions to contribute. “The Alexander Turnbull Library, already holder of a rich Katherine Mansfield collection, will try to secure these papers for New Zealand. The money contributions are to be devoted, together with funds available to the library, to this objective.” The view that New Zealand should be the repository of her papers has been taken by the British Musuem, which recently refused, in favour of the Turnbull Library, an opportunity to purchase her letters, the statement says.

"All remittances should go tc the secretary, care of the Turnbull Library, Wellington, and will be acknowledged,” the statemen concludes.