Our First Anthologists

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 943, 6 September 1957, Page 18

Our First Anthologists

AN event of 50 years ago in New Zealand literary history is recalled by the death of William Frederick Alexander, who, from 1920 to 1946, edited the Dunedin Evening Star. This was the publication in 1906 in the "Canterbury Poets". series (Walter Scott Company, of London) of New Zealand Verse, which I believe to have been the first anthology of New Zealand poetry published overseas. If I am wrong on this point, I should welcome correction. The book was also, I should say, the most important collection yet made in New Zealand. In it Fred Alexander collaborated with A. E. Currie (Ernest), who has long been prominent in the legal and literary life of Wellington. The "Canterbury Poets" series has been out of print for many years, and seems to be well-nigh forgotten. The other day I saw a couple of copies among the books from a private library that a leading second-hand bookshop had rejected. But in its day the series may have done more to popularise poetry than anything else of the kind. Over 100 volumes were listed in the Alexander-Currie book. They ranged over English, "colonial," American, European, and ancient classical litera‘ture; were solidly and attractively got up in pocket form; and the cheapest edition cost a shilling. They included ‘some valuable anthologies, such as Sonnets of the Century, Sonnets of Europe, and that delightful collection of old French forms, Ballades and Rondeaus, drawn from many writers in England and America. Today the series is particularly valuable for its minor poets. | New Zealand Verse was edited by two young men who were friends in Christchurch. Both were educated at the Christchurch Boys’ High School. In 1906, when the book was published, Alexander, a sub-editor on the Press, was 24, and Currie, a law student or law clerk, 22. They must have been substantially younger when they began the work. It would be interesting to know if any other standard anthology has been edited at such early ages. But the collection was well made, and the lengthy introduction showed no sign of immaturity. It was scholarly and well written, with insight and style. It neither apologised. nor depreciated unduly, nor boasted, but stated fairly, understandingly and brightly, the facts of literary achievement in this new country and the promise of development. : So New Zealand poetry was put modestly on the world map. I do not know what the response was in Britain, except that I have been told one reviewer said New Zealand played football better than it wrote poetry (this was soon after the triumphant tour of / the All Blacks), but I am sure the book

‘did much to spread interest here. It can be called, I think, the father of our anthologies. The editors revised and enlarged it in A Treasury of New Zealand Verse, published locally in 1926. There have also been Quentin Pope’s Kowhai Gold (London, 1930); Allen Curnow’s two-editioned collection (these two ‘editors limited themselves in period); the Australian-New Zealand anthologies published by the Oxford University Press in Melbourne; and, recently, the Oxford Book of New Zealand Verse. However old-fashioned the modernist may consider the 1906 volume to be, it was a landmark in our letters, and should not be neglected by the student. Fred Alexander had a passion for literature and a fine taste, which he used to good purpose in his newspaper work. During his long editorship in Dunedin, he gave the Star a strong literary flavour, and a number of outside writers were indebted to him for a hearing. In the history of our literature and journalism, activities which are so often inseparable, he should be remembered.

Alan

Mulgan