This is a second-hand paperback book; the cover has flaps.

Condition: The edges of the compressed pages have light to medium, browning, age spotting and discolouring. There is light age spotting and browning to the first and last page, and there is a name written tidily on the first page. There is a small area of light staining on one of the photo pages; the photos aren’t affected. The rest of the book has no faults

Dimensions: 173x240mm. Pages: 455 Publisher: Victoria University Press Publication date: 2003 first edition

Mason: The Life of R.A.K. Mason By Rachel Barrowman

The story of how R.A.K. Mason (1905-1971) dumped 200 copies of his first book, The Beggar, into Auckland harbour, in disappointment, disgust or despair because no-one would buy it, is a legend in New Zealand literary history: a symbol of a time - the 1 920s and 1930s when a true, vital, native literature struggled to be written or heard in a provincial and puritanical country.

The full story of the gifted but troubled man behind the legend is told for the first time in this elegant and accessible biography.

Mason's poems are one of the glories of New Zealand literature - 'gloomy, sexy and sardonic', the English critic William Plomer called them. But there were few.

Mason's political beliefs prompted him to turn his creative energies to left-wing theatre in the 1930s; for ten years after the war he worked for the Auckland General Labourers' Union, on the militant left wing of the labour movement; later he became heavily involved in the NZ China Society.

Family pressures were also part of Mason's struggle. Mason: The Life of R.A.K. Mason is a major contribution to New Zealand literary history, and the deeply moving story of a life.

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Buyer to pay shipping: $4.60 (2 or more books: North Island $8.50, South Island $13.20), within NZ Sorry no pickups or drop offs.