Appendix I : Reading List

The aspect of this novel not fully examined in the scope of this introduction is the relationship of literature (as novels, history, poetry, theatre, opera, and so on) to the characters. The act of reading operates as an important educational and creative exercise within the book. Grossmann’s Aidie and Dennis have spent a great deal of time reading, and engaging with art, both within and without the text.

Within colonial endeavour, the hard physical work of settlement did not always allow time for artistic or scholastic endeavour, and the creation of art and enjoyment of literature seemed to take place in often as a secondary and less urgent pursuit. Still, ideas surrounding nation-building and the creation of a new society did involve literature, art, theatre and history; much of the artisitic work was done through the reproduction and reiteration of the old world in the modern one.

Grossmann’s belief in the importance and value of education are at the heart of this ‘reading primer’, that provides that template for Aidie and Dennis, who, in the course of their relationship, arrange their lives in a way that allows them plenty of time for their poetry- and history-books, a curious ending for the lovers, mostly because it is unexpected, for the reader and the neighbourhood.

I have assembled a ‘prescribed reading list’. Artists and works present in The Heart of the Bush include :

Dante Aligheri (1265-1321), Italian poet and author.

Robert Burns (1759-96), Scottish poet and lyricist. ‘My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose’.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616), English playwright. The Taming Of The Shrew, A Midsummer’s Night Dream.

Ellen Kean (1805-1880), English actress.

Ellen Terry (1847-1928), English Shakespearean actress.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), Irish playwright.

Dame Nellie Melba (1861-1931), Australian operatic soprano.

Richard Wagner (1813-83), German composer. Der Ring Des Nibelung(The Ring of the Nibelung), (1848-74).

Georges Bizet(1838-75), French composer. Carmen, first performed in 1875.

Henry Hart Milman (1791-1868), English historian, Dean of Saint Paul’s Cathedral. History of Latin Christianity, published 1855.

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900), German philosopher.

Frances Burney (1752-1840), English author. Evelina, or the History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World, published in 1778.

Sir Philip Sidney (1554-86), English poet. ‘My True Love Hath My Heart’.

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832),Scottish novelist and poet. ‘Marmion’(1808); ‘The Lady of the Lake’ (1810); ‘It was an English Ladye Bright’; ‘The Lord of the Isles’; ‘Rob Roy’; ‘Brignall Banks’.

Josephus (37-c.100CE), ancient Roman historian. The Jewish War and Antiquities of the Jews.

Edward Gibbon (1737-94), English historian. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

William Hickling Prescott (1796-1859), American historian. The History of Ferdinand and Isabella, The Conquest of Mexico, and The Conquest of Peru.

John Lothrop Motley (1814-77), American historian.

Jean- Charles Léonard Simonde (1773-1842), Swiss writer. The History of the Italian Republics in the Middle Ages (1807-18).

George Grote (1794-1871), English historian. History of Greece (1846-56).

Sappho (630 or 612BC-570BC), ancient Greek poet, translated by H T Wharton (1846-95).

Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510), early Italian Renaissance artist.

Thomas Hood (1799-1845). ‘Lycus The Centaur’.

Samuel Richardson (1689-1761), English novelist. Pamela: Or, Virtue Rewarded.

James Hogg (1770-1835), Scottish poet and novelist. ‘Kilmeny’.

Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949), Belgian poet and playwright. Monna Vanna,(1902).

Walter Pater (1839-94), English essayist and critic.

Theocritus(3rd century BC), ancient Greek poet.

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517-47), English Renaissance poet.

Sir Philip Sidney (1554-86), English Renaissance poet.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850), English Romantic poet.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-92), English Romantic poet. ‘Idylls of the King’, ‘Kubla Khan’(1816).

Sir Thomas Malory (1405-71), English writer. Le Morte d’Arthur.

John Milton (1609-74), English poet and public figure. ‘Lycidas’.

Sir George Grey (1812-98), British writer and New Zealand governor. Polynesian Mythology and Ancient Traditional History of the New Zealand Race, published in 1885.

Willoughby and Co. published Heathen Mythology in 1842.

Edmund Spenser (1552-99), English poet. ‘The Fairye Queen’.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), English Romantic poet.

John Keats (1795-1821), English Romantic poet.

Charles Jefferys (1807-65), English composer. ‘Mary of Argyle’

Bram Stoker (1847-1912) Irish author. Dracula, published 1897.

Antonio Fogazzaro(1842-1911), Italian writer. Il Santo, (1905).

Lady Caroline Keppel(1734-unknown), English poet. ‘Robin Adair’.

Further reading around The Heart of the Bush and its texts should include Jane Stafford’s essay ‘Reading in The Heart of the Bush’, published in Script & Print 29, 1-4, 2005, pp290-97, and Susann Liebich’s ‘“The Books Are The Same As You See In London Shops”: Booksellers in Colonial Wellington and Their Imperial Ties, ca. 1840-1890’, also in Script & Print 31, 4, 2007, pp197-209.