Notable Acquisitions

Turnbull Library Record, Volume 23, Issue 2, 1 October 1990, Page 170

Notable Acquisitions

The Library has recently purchased an important collection of Katherine Mansfield letters at Sotheby’s in New York. The purchase was made possible with help from the Department of Internal Affairs. The letters to the writer William Gerhardie were written during 1921 and 1922.

In July 1990 the Library received a unique collection of Moriori documents. They have been deposited with restricted access, by Mr Wilfred Davis. His father inherited them from Moriori elders who died at the Chatham Islands settlement of Hawaruwaru between 1890 and 1910. The papers comprise genealogies, traditions, waiata, letters and census information, and are the most important single collection of Moriori papers to have survived.

Important acquisitions for the Special Printed Colleections included a facsimile edition of the Book of Kells and a fine copy of John Pine’s edition of the works of the Latin poet Horace, with text and illustrations entirely printed from engraved plates. The Cartographic section recently acquired the map collection from the Parliamentary Library. Some 15,000 maps were received, including hydrographic charts, some late nineteenth century British ordnance survey material, maps of New Zealand and the Pacific, and maps of Europe relating in particular to World War Two. The Parliamentary Library has retained electoral maps. This material is not catalogued and is thus not yet available for general use.

In recognition of New Zealand’s sesquicentenary, Allans Music (Australia) Pty. Ltd. has generously deposited the original full orchestral score of Alfred Hill’s cantata Hinemoa. This score, from which Hill conducted, is a unique working document and a companion volume to the piano score which the composer donated to the Library in 1952. Both scores have come to the Library through the initiative of Mr Ashley Heenan, and in the instance of the full score, with the assistance of the New Zealand Composers Foundation and the Australasian Performing Right Association. The Archive of New Zealand Music commissioned oral histories of the singers Patricia Payne and Donald Mclntyre, and received the records of the Ensemble Dufay.