RARE BOOKS

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 140, 10 December 1931, Page 14

RARE BOOKS

FIRST PRINTINGS IN NEW ZEALAND

UNIQUE COPIES

fßy Johannes C. Andersen.)

Much has been written and is still being written about book collecting. There is no doubt it has become, a popular hobby, and it is a hobby that gives a great deal of satisfaction. , Moreover, it is one that educates the one who indulges in it, and the collector who wishes to bo successful, and to avoid being "had" too often (a few times do not signify) iinds ho has to know a good deal more about the books than he can learn from the usual te?:tboolcs or dissertations on literature. Ho begins to find that there is a very human side to his hobby; ho begins to know his authors as if they were personal friends. What has been written and is being written is, however, chiefly concerned with English writers of the old world; it is the old-world books that arc being collected and are fetching such amazing and at times incredible figures. But the collection of New Zealand books has begun. Fortunately, chiefly New Zealanders are in the field so far —or the task of the collector would bo hopeless. Why liot a few words about New Zealand books—a few notes that collectors may relish and others besides collectors too? A few words may be added, by the way, of books other than New Zealand books; of rare or precious old-world books that have found homes in New Zealand. YATE'S CATECHISM. - It may seem an insignificant beginning to start with Yate and hia "Account of New Zealand." This book, published in 1835, usually fetches about 10s in the auction room, and that price is paid for the first edition : as well aa the second —one reason being that fow buyers notieo whether the edition is a first or a second, since the two editions were published in the same year. The first is, however, much rarer than the second; one book in ten may prove to be a first, whoso price should be at least 15s, if not £1. Hocken ia Ms "Bibliography" says that the only difference between the two ia in the title page. Hocken is wrong; the map in the first is a map of New Zealand; that in the second is the North Island only. The next too has been ro-set and rearranged in parts, as may be" seen by comparing pages 145 to 149 204 to 210, and others. In the second edition page- 289. is wrongly, numbered 189. Yate was something of a naturalist, but mixes our two cuckoos badly; he was the first, however, to note that they wore migratory birds. He sent a box of New Zealand sheila to London, which were described by J. E. Gray, ten being new to science; one of them, a ribbed ana spined cockle, was named after him Venus Yatei. A good first Yate is by no means common. Yate arrived at the Bay of Islands in 1828, and after spending nearly seven years in New Zealand he went to London to sco through tho press tke book he had written on his experiences in the new land; on his return to Sydney in 1536 he was dismissed from the mission for misconduct. It was not, however, because of his "Account of New Zealand" that I started with Yate. I wished to give him the credit due to him of printing tho first book in New Zealand itself. This credit is usually given to Colenso, who arrived in New Zealand with a printing press in December, 1834, and started printing his first book, in Maori, the Epistles to the Ephesians and Philippians, 16 pages in double columns, on 17th February, 1835. On the 21st of the month twenty-five copies were ready for tho missionaries, their wives providing coloured covers in the shape of red blotting paper; and though 2000 copies were finally printed, a copy is worth having—especially one of the twenty-live. Colenso calls this "tho first book printed in New Zealand"; but one had been printed five years earlier. PRINTING UNDER DIETICUIiTIES. Yato was in Sydney in 1830, where he spent six months in putting through tho press a book of 117 pages, containing parts of Genesis, Matthew, John, Corinthians, the Morning and Evening Prayer, tho Commandments, first and second Catechism, and 19 hymns. On returning to New Zealand he took with him a small printing press, on which he printed one or two leaflets contaiuing a few hymns, also a small Catechism. This Catechism, printed at Kerikeri in 1830, is tho first book printed in New Zealand. When Hocken compiled his bibliography, the only copy he knew was in tho possession of the Church Missionary Society, London. Through the kind offices of his Lordship Bishop (then Archdeacon) Williams, the book is now in tho Turnbull Library. A second copy is in tho Auckland Public Library. These are the only two copies known, but that does not say they are the only copies, so here is another item for collectors to watch- for. It is a small book of six pages, numbered in small Toman, the first two pages being unnumbered and blank. On the first of these in tho Turnbull Library copy is written, "Bee. May 25/31. The Church Catechism in ye N. Zeaß Language"; aud on the second, "Tho Church Catechism, printed at Kerikeri, New Zealand, August, 1830." This is tho third Catechism; and the reason Yate printed no more is at once evident on seeing the book —it is a terrible job; an approiitice would have been sacked for it. Yate evidently had no competent craftsman to carry it out, and was none himself, so this was his only effort, future publications being printed in Sydney, as were earlier ones. He does not mention this attempt in his'"Account of New Zealand," though he does mention seeing the book of 117 pages through the press in Sydney. Should another copy turn up, it will be one of the prizes in New Zealand publications. LEE AND KENDALL'S GRAMMAR. There was a book of New Zealand interest printed ten years earlier, in 1820, which forms the foundation of all books printed in Maori—the book known as Lee and Kendall's "New Zealand Grammar."

There is interesting history connected with this publication. Thomas Kendall, one of tho lay missionaries sent to New Zealand by Marsden, had for five years been collecting material for such a book, when* in 1820 he visited England with tho afterwards notorious Hongi and ' his cousin Waikato. Professor S. Lee, of Cambridge, from the material brought by Kendall, and from

a vocabulary collected two years earlier from two other. Maori visitors to London, Tool (Tui) and Teeteree (Titorej, reduced the Maori language to simple phonetics, employing letters that with a few modifications have been used ever since, and s.etting down the grammar of the tongue. The book contains 240 pages all told. ■

This is a most important book from a linguistic point of view, a most desirable one from a collector's, and he need not grudge giving £5 f-r a copy, or more for, a good one. If he is a true collector, too, he will soon learn that there is more than one issue. One issue was on ordinary thin white paper, a second ou rougli coarse brownish naper— -Vnv second being intended for use by the Maori students, who had not yet learned how to handle a book, haying hardly begun to learn how to read one. In this issue, too, page 1

has been reset, the long ■ and short sounds of tho vowels being in one column instead of two. Pages i. to viii. and 1 to 60 (the grammar) were also issued in a separate volume, intended as a handbook for the Maori. Tho book was issued in grey paper boards.

Thoro is a third isitae which differs so materially that it is almost another edition; but it was issued in the same year, and the body of tho book, pp. 1-120, is identical with the first issue. The title-page ■ and preface differ materially. The "points" may be given another time when there seems to be need for it; enough has been said for tho keen collector to bo on the gui vivo. Specimens of all three are in the Turnbull Library. Besides the copies of tlie printed books, there are always the. original manuscripts to bo thought of, and these naturally command far higher prices than tho books themselves, especially when in tho author's hand and. not in the cold impersonal form .of typewriting. '■ . ■ STRANGE FIND OF MANUSCRIPT. I had never thought of the MS. of Lee and Kendall's book being available, till one day in 1929 a visitor to the library asked me if this MS. would be acceptable to the library. It may be supposed I was not too enthusiastic, however I may have felt—and on 30th July, 1929, the MS. was handed in and is now in the library. : It may not be tho MS. from which the book was set, the preface differs from both the printed prefaces, and there are differences iv the body of the book; but it is signed Cambridge, Samuel Lee, and is at any rate a MS. of the famous grammar. It appears the donor was travelling iv England, and was visiting the home of tho Eev. S. Howard Coombs, of Worcester; and hearing his visitor was from New Zealand the Rev. Coombs during tho visit said casually, "As you aro from New Zealand, you may be interested in this book," and produced the MS. in question. The visitor examined it and asked where it had been obtained. "I don't know," said the Eev. Coombs; "it was knocking round my father's house when I was a boy, and has been with me since." "It ought to be in New Zealand in tho Turnbull Library," said the visitor. "What is the Turnbull Library?" The visitor seized his opportunity arid explained—and was told that if he thought the book would be of interest to the library he might take it and present it from him. . And here it is now; 235 pages of MS. in a small black leather volume with metal clasp. It is said that Kendall proposed the' issuo of another edition five years later, a few sheets of which appeared, but no specimens have been seen, and Kendall was dismissed by the society in August, 1822. FIRST BOOK IN MAORI. There was a yet earlier book, in Maori, published in 1815, in ■ Sydney— "A Korao no New Zealand; or, the. New Zealander's First Book; being an Attempt to compose some Lessons for the Instruction of the Natives." This was written by Kendall, and contained 54 pages, bound in strong brown paper. There is a copy in the Auckland Museum. Of it Marsden reported to the society, "Mr. Kendall sent me over a spelling book to get printed. I have had a few hundreds printed and bound. .." There are probably not many of the few hundreds left, for the usage of the books was rough, and, firenrms being in great demand, later on there was great demand among the Maori for paper for wads. Now the demand is among the collectors, and a nimble wit might turn a-clever jeu d'esprit on tho changed values of the wads then and now.

The illustration printed on page 17 shows tho oldest house in Now Zealand, built in 1819. J. Kemp was with the Eev. Yate when the book above referred to was printed, and descendants of J. Kemp still live in the house. Printing of the hymns iv Maori begau on Ist September, 1830.' As assistant Yate brought with him from Sydney James Smith, a youth fifteen years of age, and he says of the result, "We succeeded beyond our most sanguine expectations." It was different when they.came to deal with the book of the Catechism. In front of the house, tho one on the right of the picture, is the oldest orange.tree in New Zealand. On the left is seen the old two-storeyed stone store, built in 1533 —the first stone building erected in New Zealand. It was built as a store, but also with an eye to defence, for the walls are two feet thick, the windows aro iron-barred, and the timber beams are strong and heavy. Bishop Selwyn used one of the upstairs rooms as a library for a time. It was used by tho authorities as a military store and barracks during the Heke War of 1845. Tho matai shingles that originally covered the roof of the wooden building have been replaced with iron. The house itself is heavily and strongly built of tho best heart-timber of totava, kauri, and puriri—which accounts for its having resisted tho sieges of time for over a hundred years. The photograph reproduced was kindly lent by the Misses Kemp, who live in the house at the present time.