Notable Acquisitions

Turnbull Library Record, Volume 25, Issue 1, 1 January 1992, Page 59

Notable Acquisitions

Important acquisitions for the Special Printed Collections include the first American edition of John Milton’s Paradise Lost, published by Robert Bell in Philadelphia, 1777, in a two-volume set together with Paradise Regain’d, Samson Agonistes, the Mask of Comus and Poems on Several Occasions. This fills a gap in the Library’s holdings of early editions of Milton published outside London. The Bible Society in New Zealand also added a further fourteen early printed and manuscript items to its collection of Bibles and related material on permanent loan to the Library, including two copies of the Geneva Bible, 1586 and 1589, a King James Bible of 1614, and the first volume of a folio Bible of 1607 to add to the volume already held in the Society’s loan collection.

The Cartographic Section and Manuscripts and Archives Section purchased a hitherto unknown log book from the voyage of the Royal Navy storeship HMSS Dromedary, which spent ten months in New Zealand in 1820. The log was kept by Perceval Baskerville, Midshipman, and is one of several records of the voyage, some of which are held in the Turnbull. The log contains seven manuscript charts, three of which record New Zealand harbours Hokianga, the Bay of Islands, and Whangaroa. They are among the earliest known charts of these harbours, and are important for their land-based information as well as their navigational detail. With one exception, the charts have been attributed to George Fairfowl, the ship’s surgeon. The log itself contains the usual record of daily activities on board ship while at sea and at anchor. There is little comment on aspects of life in New Zealand at the time. The log makes a welcome addition to existing records of the voyage of the Dromedary.

The Drawings and Prints Collection has recendy purchased two major items for its collections. The first is an album of watercolours by Colonel C. E. Gold. The album includes many new views of the Wellington district between 1847 and 1861, notably a view of the fort at Porirua, Taupo Pa at Plimmerton, an early flour mill at Kaiwharawhara, Pipitea Pa seen from behind, and a view across Wadestown to the Hutt Valley; scenes of Auckland Harbour; an excellent view of New Plymouth in 1860; New Zealand bush; and a view of Vanuatu and New Caledonia. The second acquisition is A Korero: Te Rangihaeata Addressing Governor Grey at Waikanae in 1851 , a large watercolour by Admiral R. A. Oliver. It is the original for Oliver’s lithograph of the same subject published in London in 1852 in A Series of Lithographic Drawings from Sketches in New Zealand. There are subde differences between the lithograph and the original. This watercolour is the finest example of Oliver’s work to come on the market in recent years and is of value as a resource for Wellington regional history.

The National Newspaper Collection held by the Library now has a complete run of the Auckland daily newspaper the New Zealand Herald available on microfilm, dating from the first issue in 1863 to those published two months prior to the current date.

A selection of original drawings by expatriate cartoonist Nevile Colvin is among the first collections of cartoons presented to the New Zealand Cartoon Archive. The presentation has been made by his widow, Mrs Margaret Colvin, who was visiting New Zealand from London at the time of the official launch of the Archive. A former Evening Post cartoonist, Nevile Colvin worked in Fleet Street for many years. His cartoons appeared in such newspapers as the News Chronicle, Daily Telegraph, Daily Express and Evening Standard. He is known for the highly popular ‘Modesty Blaise’ strip which he drew daily for nine years.

A recent addition to the Ephemera Collection, Ren’s Sure Guide to Economy: We Forward by Mail, Rail or Sail [revised and enlarged edition, 1912?], is a relatively rare example of a mail-order catalogue of the early twentieth century. It is illustrated and has contemporary prices of commodities in categories such as grocery, patent medicines, stationery, ironmongery, fencing, cow covers, mattresses, shoes, seeds and crockery. The Library is interested in acquiring similar material.