The Maori King or, the story of our quareel with the natives of New Zealand. JE Gorst. (1864). This edition 1974. Capper Press, Christchurch

A facsimile edition of the important work of 1864 John Eldon Gorst, a graduate of Cambridge University, arrived in New Zealand in 1860. The first edition of this book was published in London in 1864 as The Maori King & it made clear the fact that Maori had set up their own kingship because of their exclusion from any role in the government of New Zealand in the country's Constitution Act of 1856.

The Maori King, now published in a third edition with an excellent introduction and helpful, scholarly footnotes, achieves two things with great authority and unmistakeable clarity. It reveals on the one hand how racist were the great majority of Pakeha colonists in New Zealand in their attitudes towards & relations with Maori in the mid-19th century; but it also shows that individual Europeans - Bishop Selwyn, the Chief Justice Sir William Martin & Gorst himself - recognised that fact, regretted it & did all in their power to make the intelligence, integrity & human dignity of Maori apparent to their fellow colonists. The Maori King; Or, the Story of Our Quarrel with the Natives of New Zealand [Bibliographical References: Bagnall 2184 - "Clear pictures of the events leading to the Waikato War, the attitudes of the tribes, Wiremu Tamihana, Rewi and others, from the founding of the King Movement, past Fenton's well-intentioned but frustrated failure, to Grey's inadequate policies four years later. An outstanding, dispassionate, classic record of Maori and Pakeha before the campaigns of 1863-4."; Hocken 229 - "The writer sustained the difficult position of Civil Commissioner of the Waikato for eighteen months from 1861. History of the rise and development of the Land League and King movement, and the increasing dislike to the colonists, which ended in war. Condemns the attitude of the Colonial Government, settlers, and the Press. History of the Hokioi and Pihoihoi newspapers."]