Impossible to be procured in the colony': a study of the importation and dissemination of Irish literature in New Zealand, 1868-1920

Abstract

Between the late 1860s and 1920 the Irish community in New Zealand imported and disseminat~d current Irish and Irish diaspora literature through bookshops established in Wellington Christchurch, Dunedin, Greymouth and Auckland. Using pivotal communication networks, including Irish Catholic newspaper, booksellers in these centres built a large client base, and business contacts with publishing companies in North America, Ireland, England and Australia who specialised in the current Irish literatures - including fiction, poetry, history, current affairs, political rhetoric, newspapers and religious works. Using a combination of newspaper published booklist data, plus contextual information on the history of the nineteenth-century book trade, this paper explores the social and cultural complexities of ethnic identity, and the importance and significance to New Zealand print culture history of a specialised trade in Irish works that began in the latter third of the nineteenth century.