A First Year in Canterbury Settlement
- Pages
- about 162
- Category
- History
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 3 h at 250 wpm
From the opening
Since Butler's death in 1902 his fame has spread so rapidly and the
world of letters now takes so keen in interest in the man and his
writings that no apology is necessary for the republication of even his
least significant works. I had long desired to bring out a new edition
of his earliest book A FIRST YEAR IN CANTERBURY SETTLEMENT, together
with the other pieces that he wrote during his residence in New Zealand,
and, that wish being now realised, I have added a supplementary group of
pieces written during his undergraduate days at Cambridge, so that the
present volume forms a tolerably complete record of Butler's literary
activity up to the days of EREWHON, the only omission of any importance
being that of his pamphlet, published anonymously in 1865, THE EVIDENCE
FOR THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST AS CONTAINED IN THE FOUR
EVANGELISTS CRITICALLY EXAMINED. I have not reprinted this, because
practically the whole of it was incorporated into THE FAIR HAVEN.
A FIRST YEAR IN CANTERBURY SETTLEMENT has long been out of print, and
copies of the original edition are difficult to procure. Butler
professed to think poorly of it. Writing in 1889 to his friend Alfred
Marks, who had picked up a second-hand copy and felt some doubt as to
its authorship, he said: "I am afraid the little book you have referred
to was written by me. My people edited my letters home. I did not
write freely to them, of course, because they were my people. If I was
at all freer anywhere they cut it out before printing it; besides, I had
not yet shed my Cambridge skin and its trail is everywhere, I am afraid,
perceptible. I have never read the book myself. I dipped into a few
pages when they sent it to me in New Zealand, but saw 'prig' written
upon them so plainly that I read no more and never have and never mean
to.
A short sample. Read the whole book
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