Newspapers in New Zealand

"Many newspapers in New Zealand have celebrated their anniversaries by publishing special numbers recording their individual histories. "Newspapers in New Zealand" is the first comprehensive history recording every paper published since 1839, when the Father of our Press, Samuel Revans, issued in London his "New Zealand Gazette". The present author had a background of 30 years experience on New Zealand newspapers when he became Parliamentary Librarian and was able to study and develop the remarkable collection of newspapers in the General Assembly Library. The subject was treated bibliographically in a Union Catalogue published in 1938. The present volume tells the story of some 500 newspaper ventures, with special reference to the personalities engaged: some of them dominating figures, like Vogel, Fenwick, Brett, Horton and the Blundells; others quaint and romantic like Revans himself, Joseph Ivess, the doyen of the "rag-planters", Thomas Bracken and William Shaw. The great successes in our journalism were generally unspectacular, but the failures, sadly numerous, have yielded epic stories." -- Inside front cover.