Post researched and written by Christopher Meech, Head Curator Publications, Hocken Collections Every now and then a find quite unexpected and novel comes through the doors at Hocken. A small book titled Original Poetry, by Mrs C. Fulton, to which are added a few Poems by her Father Mr James Dods[1], is such a remarkable find. This modest publication has […]

Post researched and written by General Assistant Gini Jory Radical writers are often thought of as a cornerstone of New Zealand literature. Whether it be poetry, short stories, novels, commentaries or screenplays, these writers have cried out against the status quo, speaking out on issues such as racism, social injustice and numerous other political concerns. […]

Post researched and written by Jennie Henderson, Hocken Collections Assistant. Many of us may be feeling a bit hermit-like during New Zealand’s Covid-19 lockdown, but we are not Dunedin’s first hermits!  100 years ago, Dunedin resident Ben Rudd earned the nickname ‘The Hermit of Flagstaff’ with his reclusive habits. Benjamin Rudd (1854-1930) was born in […]

Blog post researched and written by Lakin Wilton, HUMS 301 Intern I have had the fantastic opportunity of interning at the Hocken through the University of Otago’s Humanities Internship, which offers students the chance to be placed in an organisation in Dunedin and undertake a project in place of a paper. The internship counts towards […]

Post prepared by Natalie Poland, Curator of Pictorial Collections   The exhibition Picture/Poem: the imagery of Cilla McQueen and Joanna Margaret Paul that has just opened in the Hocken Library’s gallery brings together the creative works of award-winning poet Cilla McQueen and respected painter Joanna Margaret Paul. The pair met in Dunedin in the late […]

We are delighted to announce that the papers of Charles Brasch have been inscribed on the New Zealand Memory of the World Register. At a national function at the Hocken on Thursday (November 28), the Charles Brasch papers were announced as a significant new addition to the UNESCO register, along with the Sir Edmund Hillary […]

20 May 2011 marks 150 years since Gabriel Read discovered the payable gold that led to the Otago gold rush in an area now known as Gabriel’s Gully near the Otago town of Lawrence. This momentous discovery and the gold rush that followed rapidly transformed the face of Victorian Dunedin. This exhibition, which explores the […]

MS-2400/045 Cilla McQueen is one of New Zealand’s major and much lauded poets. Her first volume of poetry, ‘Homing In’, was published in 1982 and since this time she has published eleven volumes of poetry, several of them award winners. Themes including landscape, loss, homeland, displacement and colonisation infuse her evocative writing. In 2009 she […]