Title: The New Zealand Novel 1860-1965

Author: Joan Stevens

Publication details: Reed Publishing (NZ) Ltd, 1966

Digital publication kindly authorised by: Sylvia Johnston

Part of: New Zealand Texts Collection

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Sargeson. The issue of Frank Sargeson's Collected Stories in 1964 brought one of our best known elders back into circulation, and evoked both tributes to the force of his achievement and regrets that we had not had a novel since 1949. "I like him," wrote E. M. Forster, "because he believes in the unsmart, the unregulated and the affectionate." Now there is announced a new novel, Memoirs of a Peon, which its publishers claim as a "contemporary Tom Jones". It is set in Auckland and the Waikato, and is narrated by its protagonist, Michael Newhouse (Casanova, obviously). From what we know of Fielding, Casanova, and Sargeson, we can expect strength and subtlety. (An autobiographical essay in the series "Beginnings" appeared in Landfall, June 1965.)