Horatio Gordon Robley

First-edition copy of Robley's classic ethnography on the Maoris and the long tradition of tattooing, a profusely illustrated, valuable history that showcases the creativity and craft of the native artists.

• Major-General Horatio Gordon Robley (English).
• London: Chapman and Hall, 1896.
• xxi, 216 pp.
• Quarto.
• Includes frontispiece and 180 illustrations from drawings by the author and from photographs.
• Bookplate of I. Eliot Hodgrin to front pastedown.
• In original brown pictorial cloth with Maori tattoo illustration on the covers and gilt lettering on cover and spine.

In 1863, Major-General Robley (1840-1930) with the 68th Regiment debarked Burma for New Zealand. In the following April, Robley took his troops to join General Cameron's forces, attacking Gate Pa in Tauranga. During the 19 months he remained there with his troops, he became fascinated with the Maori people and executed a series of sketches of Maori life and tattoo patterns, as well as documenting the process practiced to preserve the tattooed heads of chiefs. "On these two subjects he regarded himself as an authority, a claim not to be disputed provided we bear in mind that his awareness was that of a curio collector, and not that of a scholar,” —William John Phillipps.

Hocken refers to plans for a second edition in 1909, which was never published.

I. Eliot Hodgrin

Bagnall R856.

Hocken p436.

An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand, 1966.