The Feilding Star Oroua and Kiwitea Counties’ Gazette MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1927 AUTHORS' WEEK.

Feilding Star, Volume 5, Issue 1202, 12 September 1927, Page 4

The Feilding Star Oroua and Kiwitea Counties’ Gazette MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1927 AUTHORS' WEEK.

To-dnv an event begins which is

unique in the literary history of

Now Zealand and Australia. At a

conference held some months ago

in, Melbourne under the auspices of

the associated booksellers of the Commonwealth and our Dominion it was decided to sol apart the week from September 12 to 1b to the featuring of books written by the authors of Ihe two countries. ..V most comprehensive propaganda pro-

gramme was arranged for and com

mil lees were set up in the six

States and New Zealand to carry on

the details as far as was possible

Of course, the newspapers wort 1 called upon to do their share in tin

good work, and that was mostly it the nature of publicity—so much ol

which is so readily done in reall.v

good causes. Our bookshops this woof

are expected to display prominently

all the hooks they have in stock by

New Zealand and Australian writers, fact, fiction, travel and verse. A

prophet sometimes has honour in hi

own country, bill our winters should 'lie honoured with purchases by tin 1 public all (he time. There are folks in Feilding who make a point of adding to their library all the books

written by New Zealanders and not

a few written by Australians. 'The trouble is that the man in the

street, who is a voracious devourer

of the' contents of the daily papers,

has very little knowledge of books that are written by men and women of the land ho lives in. When he chooses his lief inn. it is a novel bv

an English or an American writer. Ifc does no! give preference to a story by a New Zealander. ‘Who are they and when 1 can 1 .get them, he

well might retort. For while our hoys and, girls at school are asked to name the epochal years in the history of Britain, they are never ask-

ed to name the men and women of

New Zealand who have written aml published hooks. What modern bov

or girl—oven their parents— knows

that: Alfred Domett, one of New

Zealand's first statesmen and I’re

nners, is more famous as a poet than ■is a politician and was the friend of Alfred Tennyson? Sir Julius Vogel.

another of,our Premiers, afterwards

became a novelist : and his son

Harry, who still nourishes, has a fairly large output of novels. Vet another ex-l'remier, Sir Robert Stout.

has printed books, hut not fiction. One of the best novels of the .Maori wars, “Tho Web of the Spider.” was by a Christchurch clergyman's son

who afferwards became famous in London—ll. B. .Marriott Watson. B.

L. Far. jeon, referred to as the New Zealand Dickens, wrote several of

his novels while he worked as a

printer in Dunedin. His novels were so successful that, at the urge of Charles Dickens, lie removed to Lon

don, whore a son and a daughter are •e-day prominent as writers of suc-

cessful lid ion and more successful

dramas. Another of our statesmen

who migrated, the Hon, W. p,

Beeves, has won fame in London with his pen. devoting it to history

and poetry. Fergus Hume, a Dunedin native, who sprang into literary fame will) “The Mystery of a Hansom ('ah.” has published many Ihril-

lors. London having called him long ago. This. is merely a preliminary and off-hand list of names that occur a I the thought of an Authors' Week. There is much more to he said on the subject .and in another article the names will'he brought, up to dale.