Case W5
- Notable male writers
M.H. Holcroft. Dance of the seasons: an autobiographical essay. Christchurch: Whitcombe & Tombs, 1952.
Dance of the seasons is an autobiographical work by M.H. Holcroft, an essayist who was already well known as the author of thought-provoking books about New Zealand and its people. The jacket design is by Geoffrey Nees, whose distinctive style often contained strips of colour and pattern that engage with figurative drawing to tell the story.
M.H. Holcroft. Dance of the seasons: an autobiographical essay. Christchurch: Whitcombe & Tombs, 1952.
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M.H. Holcroft. The Eye of the Lizard: a Selection of Editorials from the New Zealand Listener, 1949-59. Wellington: Reed, 1960.
The Eye of the Lizard was the first of two collections of editorials by Montague Harry Holcroft (1902-1993), editor of the Listener from 1949 to 1967. Holcroft was known for his willingness to tackle sensitive subjects but also for contemplating mundane matters with whimsical gravitas.
The jacket design is by Dennis Beytagh (1924-2016), a versatile designer of book covers in many different styles, who was sought after by New Zealand publishers. The cover art and title allude to one of Holcroft’s contemplative essays about the tuatara, our endemic reptile whose isolation and ancient origin provide inspiration to humanity in an atomic age.
M.H. Holcroft. The Eye of the Lizard: a Selection of Editorials from the New Zealand Listener, 1949-59. Wellington: Reed, 1960.
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O.E. Middleton. Selected stories. Dunedin: McIndoe, 1975.
This selection of fourteen short stories by Osman Edward Middleton (1925-2010) has a dust jacket designed by the artist Ralph Hotere (1931-2013). Hotere had also illustrated Middleton’s previous work, The loners (1972).
C.K. Stead. Smith’s dream. Auckland: Longman Paul, 1971.
Smith’s dream was the first novel by New Zealand writer, poet, and literary critic Christian Karlson Stead (1932-). A provocative work of political science fiction, it was first published in 1971, and formed the basis of the 1977 film Sleeping dogs.
Lloyd Jones. Gilmore’s dairy. Auckland: Hodder & Stoughton, 1985.
Lloyd Jones (1955-) is a New Zealand author best known for the novel Mister Pip (2006), which won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Displayed here is his first novel, Gilmore’s dairy, a satirical tale about growing up in small-town New Zealand. The jacket artwork is by Garry Meeson, who illustrated a number of children’s novels in the 1980s.
