WITH ANTHONY TROLLOPE IN NEW ZEALAND

Te Ao Hou, 1972, Page 58

WITH ANTHONY TROLLOPE IN NEW ZEALAND Edited by A. H. Reed Reed, $2.50 reviewed by E. E. Bush A two-month visit in 1872 by the famous English novelist, Anthony Trollope, resulted in the publication in 1873 of his impressions, together with much background of both the history and the geography of New Zealand. The book has proved a valuable source of New Zealand history; much of it was in the making. Mr Reed has edited this work, trimming it of much of the detail that is known, and leaving the author's impressions. In addition, Mr Reed has reversed the process; he has included impressions of Trollope gained by people. Personal and newspaper writings have been mulled over by the editor to extract ‘the impression left upon the people of these islands a century ago by this great Victorian writer’. Readers of this Journal will be particularly interested to read Trollope's description of his visit to the thermal district, via Tauranga and Maketu. His guide was none other than Captain Gilbert Mair. With his experiences in the pursuit of Te Kooti so recent, Mair must have been an entertaining guide, and no doubt much history was re-lived as Mair pointed out spots that held incident for him. Trollope's description of the Pink and White Terraces, included in this volume, reads like a scene from one of his novels, and reveals him as a craftsman of the pen. Mr Reed has done a service both to the reader of literature and to the student of history to ‘re-create’ Trollope's book, so that it would be, as the title suggests, ‘With Anthony Trollope in New Zealand’; and it was a stroke of genuis to reverse the process, and include impressions left by the great man.