Auckland University Press

grew out of a series of scholarly ‘bulletins’ dating back to the 1920s. Dennis McEldowney, editor of University Publications from 1966, became Managing Editor when the Press was formally established in 1972. Elizabeth Caffin succeeded him in 1986, becoming Director. Although the Press has published in many fields, its focus has been on New Zealand and Pacific history and literature. Its first poet was Kendrick Smithyman, in 1968. He remained with the Press all his life. Those who followed make a distinguished list: Allen Curnow, C. K. Stead, Elizabeth Smither, Bill Manhire, Ian Wedde and Albert Wendt, continued by younger poets including Michele Leggott, Murray Edmond, Gregory O'Brien, Anne French, Elizabeth Nannestad, Janet Charman and Robert Sullivan. Keri Hulme's The Silences Between (1982) was her first published work. Historians, biographers and autobiographers have equally been part of the literary tradition: E. H. McCormick, Keith Sinclair, Judith Binney, James Belich, Phoebe Meikle, Jessie Munro, Martin Edmond. Notable collections of letters include Mary Taylor, Thomas Arnold, Apirana Ngata, Frances Hodgkins and Peter Buck. With the Department of Internal Affairs the Press now publishes the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. In the 1970s the pioneering New Zealand Fiction series, edited successively by John Reid and Bill Pearson, brought back into the mainstream earlier novelists almost forgotten, beginning with Robin Hyde, George Chamier, Jane Mander and William Satchell. New fiction has been less frequent, but includes interesting experimental work by Anne Kennedy, Gregory O'Brien and others. Literary works are complemented by literary criticism: Curnow, Stead, Frank Sargeson, Mark Williams. Māori and Pacific studies are a growing part of the Press's activities.