Harvard Library Bulletin New Series Vol. 14, No. 4 (Winter 2003).
(Chosen by Dr Brian McMullin, Monash University, Melbourne)]]>
John Lightfoot]]> Books]]>
Magna Carta in the process; and Lord North (with a sash) looks on ineffectually with the equally plump bishops, who are kept quiet with jobs and honours. Even the devil is included, making off with the national credit.]]> ___]]> Books]]> Obadiah Walker]]> Books]]> Alexandria: A History and Guide gave me my first grownup insights into the history of my birthplace.
Published in 1922, the maps of Alexandria in Forster’s History and Guide depict the city as my parents and grandparents would have known it. They show the location of the Greek schools and churches we attended, the National Bank of Egypt where my father worked, the beach at Aboukir and park at Nouzha where I played, and the harbour where my father took me sailing.
(Chosen by Dimitri Anson, Research Fellow, Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, Otago)]]>
E. M. Forster]]> Maps]]>
Transcribed, translated and edited by John K. Hale and J. Donald Cullington]]> Books]]> Guide.]]> E.M. Forster]]> Books]]> Christus se non in Sacra Coena, sed in cruce obtulit; at in Missa sua Christum offerri volunt. (3. Christ did not offer himself in the sacred Supper, but on the Crosse; but they [Catholics] will have Christ to be offered in their Masse.) Milton’s version is: 3. Christus se non in sacra coena, sed in cruce obtulit; in Missa Christus quotidie a sacerdote sacrificatur. (3. Christ did not offer himself in the sacred supper, but on the Crosse; in the mass Christ is sacrificed daily by the priest.). Here the poet keeps the first half verbatim, then hinges the contrast more starkly with no conjunction. He puts the description of Catholic practice more strongly, stressing ‘daily’ and ending with a figured climax, echoing sac- in his last two words.
(Chosen by Dr John Hale, Fellow, Department of English and Linguistics, Otago)]]>
Johannes Wolleb]]> Books]]>
Cultivating Myths, I used original sources to show that the layout and planting of formal fruit and vegetable gardens was for maximum productivity, not elaborate display. Johannes Kip’s volume of plans for country estates provided me with invaluable evidence to dispel this myth.
(Chosen by Helen Leach, Emeritus Professor, Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, Otago)]]>
Johannes Kip]]> Books]]>
Theatre de la Grande Bretagne... for her book, Cultivating Myths.]]> Helen Leach]]> Books]]> The Chinese Empire was popular – indeed, it remains in print today.
(Chosen by Dr David Bell, Dunedin College of Education, Otago)]]>
Thomas Allom]]> Books]]>
Lebanon: A History, 600-2011 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012). Sandys visited Sidon, Fakhr al-Din’s ‘capital,’ in April 1611. He assessed the emir both as a person and a de facto ruler, in realistic description that buttresses and supplements the other sources. Sandys characterizes Fakhr al-Din as ‘small of stature but great in courage and achievements … subtle as a fox, and not a little inclining to the Tyrant. He never commenceth battle, nor executive any notable design, without the consent of his mother.’
(Chosen by Professor Bill Harris, Department of Politics, Otago)]]>
George Sandys]]> Books]]>
Leucocarco chalconotus) and the Foveaux Shag (L. stewarti). They have separate geographical distributions. They also differ in facial colour patterns, especially prior to the breeding season; in the timing of breeding; in their size; and crucially in their genetics. Interestingly, both black-and-white (‘pied’) and all-dark (‘bronze’) individuals occur in both species, although the bronze form is most common in the Otago Shag. In order to formalize this split into two species, we needed to know which names had been applied in the past. Mathews’ Supplement (1936) provided the answer by illustrating the bronze and pied forms of the Otago under the names Hypoleucus chalconotus and H. huttoni.
(Chosen by Professor Hamish Spencer, Department of Zoology, Otago)]]>
Gregory M. Mathews]]> Books]]>
The falling dew lies thick upon it.
There was a man so lovely,
Clear brow well rounded.
By chance I came upon him,
And he let me have my will.

The oldest collection of verse from China, The Book of Songs contains 305 poems written between the 11th and 7th centuries B.C. Centuries of moralistic Confucian interpretation had smothered the poetry and translations failed to convey their beauty. Arthur Waley cut through that edifice of moralistic scholarship and gave us the poetry in the songs. Not many knew of Waley’s genius; fortunately Charles Brasch did.
(Chosen by Professor Brian Moloughney, Department of History and Art History, Otago)]]>
Arthur Waley]]> Books]]>
it was impossible to discover anything new in the anatomy of muscles because Albinus was sure to have found it already.’ Albinus permitted local engraver Jan Wandelaar (1690-1759) sufficient artistic license to add Baroque backdrops to the ‘mannikins’. One of the symbols used to reflect their ‘new’ anatomy was the image of a travelling European Asian rhinoceros called Clara. Wandelaar had the privilege of drawing Clara after visiting the animal in the Amsterdam Zoo in 1741. This image was already so iconic that it appeared in shops in Leiden five years before publication of this unique book.
(Chosen by Professor Andrew Zbar, Department of Anatomy, University of Melbourne)]]>
Bernhard Siegfried Albinus]]> Books]]>
Mappa Mundi map contains three elements: 1.) Geographic information, such as borders between countries, names of countries, regions, mountains, rivers, and oceans; 2.) Historical information, such as images and text relating to events that occurred in a previous time; and 3.) Spiritual information, such as events and scenes from the Bible. Around the border is an image of Christ, and the letters M O R S (Latin: death) as a visual reminder of the world’s temporary existence. It is likely that mappae mundi were used for instructional rather than functional purposes. I use the Special Collections's facsimile of the Hereford Mappa Mundi for teaching 4th year geo-visualisation and cartography surveying students about how maps reveal our world-view, both in the past and today.
(Chosen by Dr Simone Marshall, Department of English and Linguistics, Otago)]]>
Scott D. Westrem]]> Books]]>
The Tower, with its striking green and gold cover, depicts the restored Norman tower, Thoor Ballylee, once the home of poet W.B. Yeats. The book contains several of Yeats’ greatest lyric poems, including ‘Meditations in Time of Civil War,’ ‘Among School Children,’ ‘Leda and the Swan,’ and ‘Sailing to Byzantium.’ If ‘given a month of Antiquity,’ Yeats would have chosen to spend it in Byzantium, where the early Byzantines achieved a perfect union of ‘religion, aesthetics, and practical life’ (A Vision). In ‘Sailing to Byzantium,’ Yeats travels there in his imagination, and art transforms him into a golden bird, singing a song of ‘unaging intellect’ and beauty. The tower on the cover of this book is not only a representation of Thoor Ballylee, but also a symbol of an aristocratic order which created art even in the most turbulent of times.
(Chosen by Dr Lisa Marr, Research Fellow, Department of English and Linguistics, Otago)]]>
W. B. Yeats]]> Books]]>
(Chosen by Dr Thomas McLean, Department of English and Linguistics, Otago)]]> [Joanna Baillie]]]> Books]]> Ecclesiastical History of the English People and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in 1643. This version represents the 1644 reissue. It carries an abridged translation in English using an Old English typeface (designer unknown) that was first used in a 1641 volume of University verses. This volume was published with the additional support of the London bookseller Cornelius Bee. This book is of considerable interest to me because I am producing a new edition of the Old English Bede. In addition to its intrinsic value as the first edition of the text, Wheelock’s version contains readings from a manuscript of the text subsequently all but destroyed in the 1731 fire in the Library of antiquarian and MP Sir Robert Cotton (1570-1631). This copy once belonged to Thomas Campbell, first rector of Otago Boys’ High School, who tragically drowned along with his family the day after (4 July 1863) their arrival in Dunedin. His library was sold at auction.
(Chosen by Dr Greg Waite, Department of English and Linguistics, Otago)

 

]]>
[The Venerable Bede]]]> Books]]>
The Phoenix and the Turtle [by Shakespeare], and twenty-six years later, for a New Statesman competition in 1960, Brasch has captured a different ‘essence’ of Keats’ ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ with a summary of it in ten words: ‘Lovers / On jug / Never / Can hug. / – Men not, / Pots not.’ This copy was bought by Brasch in London in 1934.
(Chosen by Alan Roddick, Poet and Charles Brasch's literary executor)]]>
John Keats]]> Books]]>
(Chosen by Associate Professor Alison Cree, Department of Zoology, Otago)]]> Augustus Hamilton]]> Books]]> The Art Workmanship of the Maori Race in New Zealand for her research into reptiles. The culmination of her research was this book, published in 2014.]]> Alison Cree]]> Books]]> The Gentleman’s Magazine was the first publication to use the term ‘magazine’ (‘a storehouse, commonly an arsenal or armoury’: Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary, 1755) in its now customary sense of ‘a miscellaneous pamphlet’. It was first published in 1731 by the printer Edward Cave (who edited it under the name Sylvanus Urban, i.e., ‘town and country’) and it came out monthly. It evolved from being a digest of news from European papers, to being a trusted and original source of news and features on politics, science, the arts, society, the stock market, and scholarship. It was immediately much-imitated. It included poetry and accounts of the proceedings of parliament, which from 1741 were written by Samuel Johnson, a regular contributor. It ended publication in 1922. Special Collections has a full run of the journal from 1731 to 1866. Even now, this unique resource has only been haphazardly digitised, so the best way to use it is to come and look at the real thing. Every page has something interesting or curious, and once you start browsing, it’s very hard to stop…
(Chosen by Dr Paul Tankard, Department of English and Linguistics, Otago)]]>
Sylvanus Urban]]> Magazines]]>
Thomas Parker]]> Correspondence]]> (Chosen by Dr Rosi Crane, Otago Museum, Dunedin)]]> T. Jeffrey Parker and William A. Haswell]]> Books]]> (Chosen by Dr Elaine Webster, Director, Summer School, Otago)]]> [Auguste Racinet]]]> Books]]>