Professor Jane Stafford, an expert in colonial New Zealand literature, and Associate Professor Heidi Thomson, who specialises in British Romantic literature, are based in the School of English, Film, Theatre and Media Studies.
They have each recently published books with British company Palgrave, and both found cover images that perfectly suited their respective subject-matter by searching local archival collections.
Professor Stafford says her book, Colonial Literature and the Native Author: Indigeneity and Empire, is about the relationship between indigenous writers from across the British Empire and the English literary tradition.
“I am interested in the way the colonised author, writing in English and aware of the traditional forms of English literature, nevertheless asserts their own indigenous identity,” she says. “So when Palgrave asked me whether I had an image for the cover I wanted to find something that reflected both English literature and native identity.”
Through her previous work, Professor Stafford knew about the Alexander Turnbull Library’s “tremendous” online digital collection, and after a short search she found the ideal photograph.
“The image I decided on is one of a group of stunning photographs taken by William Partington for the Auckland Star newspaper around 1901. It shows the famous guide and author Makareti Papakura, of Te Arawa and Tuhourangi, in her home at Whakarewarewa.
In the image, the woman is seated at her writing desk and is surrounded by books and bookcases.
“It’s a very conventional portrait of a writer, but she is wearing a kiwi feather cloak and heitiki, on the wall are piupiu, there is a carved paddle or taiaha leaning up against the wall behind her, and there’s a large waka huia on the sideboard,” explains Professor Stafford. “The image perfectly conveys the mixture of English literature and native identity my book deals with.”
Dr Thomson’s book, Coleridge and the Romantic Newspaper: The ‘Morning Post’ and the Road to ‘Dejection’, explains how famed English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge published poetry about delicate private matters in a very popular London newspaper between 1799 and 1802.
“In December 1799 Coleridge published a long ballad about his newfound passion for Sarah Hutchinson,” says Dr Thomson. “That poem, later retitled ‘Love’, became Coleridge’s most well-known poem throughout the nineteenth century—it has entered the realm of popular culture, with many people memorising it.”
The poem famously provided inspiration for artist George Dawe, who produced a massive oil painting in 1812 called Genevieve, named after the poem’s heroine. It shows Genevieve listening to the poet.
“The painting had ended up in Te Papa after being gifted by the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts in 1936,” says Dr Thomson. “The artist, George Dawe, had no descendants; his sister Caroline, who inherited some of his work, emigrated to New Zealand and brought it with her.
“So the choice of my cover was a no-brainer—this painting is just right, and the Te Papa Collections Online made this picture freely available.”