The Settler's Plot How Stories Take Place In New Zealand

Description

The Settler's Plot is a fresh and engaging study of the relationship between literature and place in New Zealand. Drawing on an engrossing selection of documentary and literary sources, Alex Calder explores the places our writers have turned to most often - the beach, the farm, the bush, the suburb and "overseas."

Reviews

"As an engaging contribution to an international field of study, it combines local depth with descriptive models that both draw on and contribute to the global dialogue about settlement - one which looks set to increase in both richness and scope." - Megan Murray-Pepper, Times Literary Supplement

Author description

Dr Alex Calder teaches New Zealand and American literature in the English Department of The University of Auckland. He has written extensively on the literature of the cross-cultural frontier and the problems of settlement, and is an authority on the works of Herman Melville. Dr Calder is the author of The Writing of New Zealand: Inventions and Identities (Reed, 1993) and coeditor of Voyages and Beaches: Pacific Encounters, 1769-1840 (University of Hawai'i Press, 1999).

Table of contents

Preface

Acknowledgements

Part I: Belonging

Chapter 1. Nature and the Question of Pakeha Turangawaewae

Part II: Landing

Chapter 2. Augustus Earle and the Secret of Cannibalism

Chapter 3. Maning's Demons

Chapter 4. A Small Plot at Orakau

Part III: Settling

Chapter 5. Taking Place

Chapter 6. The Plots of Tutira

Chapter 7. Suburbs, Settlers, Souls

Chapter 8. Glorious Phantoms: Frank Sargeson in Bohemia

Part IV: Looming

Chapter 9. There and Back: Robin Hyde's Passport to Hell

Chapter 10. Western Swing: John Mulgan's Man Alone

Chapter 11. Cathedral Rock: Allen Curnow in Italy

Chapter 12. Placing Frame

Notes

Bibliography

Index