A MAN AND HIS HOBBY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 10, Issue 246, 10 March 1944, Page 12

A MAN AND HIS HOBBY

_ Whangarei Resident Knows All About Dumas

(Written for "The Listener’ by

A.

M.

T is no reflection on the pretty and progressive .town of Whangarei, chief centre of North Auckland, to say it is surprising to find there a specialised collection of French literature, which has an international standing. Whangarei is a long way indeed from France and from great book collections in Britain and America. Yet F. W. Reed has got together a collection bearing on the life and work of Alexandre Dumas that has no equal outside Paris; indeed Mr. Reed has some items that the Paris libraries, lack. Last week Mr. Reed wrote for listeners about Dumas, and it is fitting that listeners should now be told how it is that Mr. Reed came to be one of the world’s authorities on the author of The Three Musketeers and Monte Cristo. As befits the subject of his life hobby, Mr. Reed’s success in a small country town at the other side of the world from France is a romance. It is also an inspiration. For where could you find a more impressive example of what a man can do with a hobby when he has the will? Frank Reed had no special privileges of education, wealth, or position. When he began to collect Dumas, Whangarei was a good deal more out of the world than it is now. His daily business kept him working long hours. And for some years after he began he did not know French. Chemistry and Books The story begins with a boy in England, a boy with a passion for historical novels, and convinced, through one of Dumas’s-The Queen’s Necklace-that thi8 was the way such novels should be written. He came out to New Zealand at the age of 12, and for the next 10

years added to his stock of Dumas’s novels, and collected scraps of information about them. He went to work in a chemist’s shop in Whangarei, and qualified as a chemist. In time, through the sale of ‘stationery, a book side to the business was started, and- Mr. Reed was put in charge. There was a chemist on one side of the shop, and a book store on the other. The book business grew until the firm was doing its own buying overseas, "Blood to the Tiger" In 1902, to mark the. centennial of Dumas’s birth in 1802, there were published in England two important books on the Frenchman, and from these Mr. Reed learned that his favourite romancer had written many more books than were accessible to English readers, and in addition-to his novels, he had put out plays and poetry, books of travel, and history. The next land-mark was his contact in 1916 with the late R. S. Garnett, son of Dr. Garnett of the British Museum, and the greatest authority on Dumas. Garnett helped Mr. Reed a great deal. He sent him a copy of a rare French work on Dumas, having secured for himself the copy owned by the famous Andrew Lang. Since he could not read this book, Mr. Reed was fired to learn French, and translate. Working with dictionaries and grammar and the (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) occasional help of friends, he translated, typed and indexed this French book in twelve months. This was blood to the tiger, so to speak. Since then Mr. Reed has translated into English, typed and bound ‘into volumes, the whole of Dumas’s known signed plays, 72 of them, including five which have never been printed, and in addition several volumes of other matter relating to the master. He has -done all his typing himself, and fine work it is. I have seen it in the pleasant brick library he built for himself at his home in Whangarei. Bear in mind that this was all donethis and collecting from all over the world-in the leisure of a busy man. For years Mr. Reed’s hours were from eight ~ in the morning till eight in the evening, and 10 p.m. on Saturdays. Besides, a chemist in a little country town has to be ready for emergency calls at any time, It takes a busy man to do an extra job. It is satisfactory to record that the industrious apprentice was rewarded in a worldly sense: he ultimately acquired the business. On the other side of the shop he was able to indulge his love of books. He tells me that at one time his shop was selling more copies of "Everyman’s Library" than the leading shop in Auckland. Honours from France Fifteen years ago Mr. Reed arranged his information about Dumas into two © typed volumes, and presented one set to — the British Museum and the other to his friend, the French Consul in Auckland, who passed it on to the National Library of France. In 1933 the more important of these volumes, a bibliography of Dumas, was published. Mr. Reed had already been decorated by the French Government "Officier d’Academie" and in 1934 he was given the hightr rank of "Officier de Jl’Instruction Publique’"for services rendered to French literature." By that time Garnett had died, and had left Mr. Reed his own Dumas collection of over 600 volumes. The double collection is unique. It amounts to very nearly 3000 volumes, and includes about 1600 sheets of Dumas’s manuscripts in his dwn handwriting, and what is probably the only attempt made to gather Dumas’s scattered verse. The collection is to go to the Auckland Public Library. The kindliest and most approachable of men, Frank Reed is always willing to talk Dumas to anyone interested-to discuss all kind of points in the career of one of the most prolific of literary geniuses-his employment of "ghosts" or assistants, his methods of story construction and writing, the variety of his interests, his tremendous zest for life, the various versions of his romances. Mr. Reed has inspired enthusiasm in others. He tells how a young New Zealander, who through him became interested in Dumas, found and bought in a French town the manuscript of a play almost certainly by Dumas and perhaps a play that is known to be missing. Frank Reed’s enthusiasm and its results will influence many others as the years pass, and the Reed collection will be consulted and appreciated. not only by New Zealanders, but by scholars from other countries. Mr. Reed will be heard in an inter-view-talk on Dumas at 1YA on the evening of Tuesday, March 14. On that date 100 years ago "The Three Musketeers" made its first appearance, and in the same year "The Count of Monte Cristo" also saw the light.