All Time Classic Hits: an exhibition of rare illustrated books from Special Collections
21 November 2005 - 26 February 2006
When does a book become a classic?
When a book outlives its immediate popularity and continues to appeal to readers, it transcends its own time and becomes a part of our culture. We may never have read the original work, but we know the story or have seen the film, and we recognise the phrases that have entered the language.
Many of the books in this exhibition of rare and illustrated classics are so well-known, that even if we haven’t read them ourselves, we know the story or have seen the film. Some of them, such as Robinson Crusoe or Gulliver’s travels are adult books which have become popular in abridged children’s versions. Others have always been family favourites, such as Alice in Wonderland or Aesop’s Fables.
This exhibition is a selection of some of these well-loved favourites, which have captured the imagination of artists, and been re-interpreted by them in numerous illustrated versions.
View the contents of the exhibition in the
exhibition list.
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200 years ago: expanding horizons, shrinking world
15 August - 13 November 2005
October 2005 marks the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar between Britain and France. Special Collections at Auckland City Libraries celebrates Lord Nelson’s great sea victory with an exhibition showing letters written by Lord Nelson, his watch, and the seal given to him by his great love, Emma Hamilton.
The exhibition looks at the Napoleonic Wars in the context of what was happening in the rest of the world. Exploration and discovery, trade and settlement continued, often overshadowed by politics in Europe.
Mungo Park began his second, and fatal, trip into the interior of West Africa; Matthew Flinders circumnavigated Australia and Baltazard Solvyns published his collection of 250 coloured etchings “descriptive of the manners, customs and dresses” of the peoples of India. These are some of the highlights of the exhibition.
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exhibition list.
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Ireland: a personal view. Its people and places, literature and arts.
From the collection of John Stacpoole
11 May - 31 July 2005
John Stacpoole is an architect, architectural historian and author. Although he was born in Auckland and has lived here all his life, his Stacpoole family came from Ireland in the nineteenth century. This explains John's love for Ireland, expressed in his collecting of Irish books over more than sixty years.
For this exhibition John has selected and described books from his collection which explore Ireland’s literature, landscape, art and people. These include many first editions and a number of books from the 17th and 18th centuries.
The exhibition marks the occasion of John Stacpoole’s generous gift of his Irish collection to Auckland City Libraries. John has been a committee member of the Auckland Library Heritage Trust since its foundation in 1991, and has already donated an important Anthony Powell collection to the Library in 2000. The Library acknowledges this latest donation with gratitude. It is a privilege to accept such a wonderful donation on behalf of present and future readers.
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Is it real gold? Medieval books 1150-1510
2 February - 30 April 2005
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Medieval manuscripts and early printed books are among the best loved treasures of Special Collections at Auckland City Libraries. This exhibition featured illuminated manuscripts decorated in gold with borders, initials and miniatures. It looks at what happened to books after the invention of printing in about 1455, and explores the changes and continuities from the manuscript to the printing era.
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Clifton Firth: Photographs
27 October 2004 to 15 January 2005
Step back in time to the glamour of Auckland's yesteryear with our exhibition of classic portraits by Auckland's style photographer Clifton Firth. From the 30s to the 70s, Firth captured the faces and fashions of Auckland and NZ, from politicians and celebrities to models and musicians.
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Perils of the Sea
7 July to 11 October 2004
For most of our history the sea has been the great highway, carrying people and trade between countries around the world. it has been a means of communication as well as a means of livelihood. People have therefore had no choice but to brave its dangers.
This exhibition highlighted those dangers, using books, manuscripts, photographs and charts from the seventeenth century to the early twentieth. Navigating unknown waters, escaping pirates, facing storms and shipwrecks, falling overboard or being left behind as castaways were all real risks for sailors. During these centuries navigational instruments improved, and accurate surveys made sailing safer, but the sea is always unpredictable.
From:
George Anderson.
A new, authentic and complete collection of voyages round the world. 1784.
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exhibition list.
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A Barbarous Measure
11 February - 30 April 2004
"I wish to announce today that the government has decided to make a formal apology to those Chinese people who paid the poll tax and suffered other discrimination imposed by statute and to their descendents" - the words of Rt Hon Helen Clark, NZ Prime Minister on 12th February 2002.
From 1881 to 1951, the New Zealand government imposed discriminatory legislation on Chinese immigrants and their families, including the requirement to pay a poll tax on entry to the country, and the withdrawal of the right to become an NZ citizen between 1908 and 1951. No other ethnic group was subjected to such restrictions or to a poll tax.
'A Barbarous Measure' explores the discrimination faced by Chinese immigrants through images and documents to tell the fascinating and little known story of a people struggling to gain equality and acceptance in a new land. The exhibition is on loan from the National Library of New Zealand.
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