CENTENNIAL LITERATURE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 13, 15 July 1939, Page 20

CENTENNIAL LITERATURE

A writer in "The Times" Literary Supplement remarks that in New Zealand, where the Centennial of the Dominion is to be celebrated next year, various writers are at work on books of New Zealand history to be published in connection with the event. Wellknown authors are preparing histories of the various provinces, among them Mr. Alan Mulgan, who is writing the history of the province of Wellington. A work of particular importance which is promised for the year of the Centennial is the New Zealand Dictionary of National Biography; this is a task upon which Dr. G. H. Scholefield, the chieflibrarian of the General Assembly Library and Dominion Archivist, has been engaged for many years. The literary plans for the Centennial do not include the production of an official history of the Dominion. Instead, some dozen short surveys—each of about 30,000 words—are to be published, dealing with different aspects of the country's history and development. Among the topics thus studied will be whaling, the Maoris, exploration, housing, flying, afforestation, and gold. A series of pictorial surveys is in preparation under the editorship of Mr. J D. Pascoe, whose recent work, "Unclimbed New Zealand," is the first comprehensive survey of mountaineering in New Zealand's Alps.