Edward Jerningham Wakefield
Adventure in New Zealand, 1839-1844: With Some Account of the Beginning of the British Colonization of the Islands.
Amsterdam/New York: N. Israel/Da Capo, 1971. Two volumes. Bibliotheca Australiana 74/75. Facsimile reprint of the 1845 London edition. 9060720946 x/482, x/546 pages.
Two-volume set, each volume measuring approximately 6.25" x 8.75", is bound in white simile vellum, with gilt-lettered dark blue compartments to spines and front covers. Books are new and preserved in transparent plastic covers. Fold-out map is attached at rear of first volume.
"It is given to few young men, particularly one not yet twenty, to be part of such a stupendous undertaking as the birth of a nation. It was fortunate for New Zealand that Edward Jerningham Wakefield, who came from England in the Tory in 1839 as secretary to his uncle, Colonel William Wakefield, had a definite literary bent, for he has left us a most colourful (if sometimes one-sided) account of the beginnings of Wellington and the other New Zealand Company settlements. His official position, inquiring mind, and an urge to see as much of this new land as possible, gave young Wakefield unique opportunities to record impressions which are invaluable today. Such prominent contemporary figures as Governor Hobson (whom he describes as "the Auckland Pasha"), Captain Fitzroy, Lieut Willoughby Shortland, the Wakefield brothers, early explorers such as Dr Dieffenbach and Charles Heaphy, the missionary Octavious Hadfield and the notorios Te Rauparaha and many more, pass through the pages. Jerningham Wakefield's book has been variously described as "a very effective piece of New Zealand Company propaganda... valuable for its colour and vigour... a remarkable production for a young man in his early twenties... as picturesquely enthralling as it is prejudiced".