Frank Sargeson

There have been important publications in each of the fields of literary criticism, memoirs and biography, and history in New Zealand during the last few years. In a brief survey it is hardly possible to cover the field entirely; what I can do is to indicate what I take to be the important titles in each of these areas.

The house of fiction in New Zealand, neither a large not crowded dwelling at the best of times, has emptied somewhat dismayingly over the past year or two with the deaths in rapid succession of four highly respected long-term tenants: Ngaio Marsh, John A. Lee, Frank Sargeson, and M.K. Joseph, the first three of whom have been in residence for almost fifty years.