Springtime in Taranaki: An autobiography of youth
By (Author) Douglas Stewart
Allen & Unwin
A & U House of Books
1st August 2012
Australia
Paperback
256
Width 128mm, Height 198mm
292g
'Who would want to live in a country town' asks the poet Elizabeth Riddell, who, like myself, left New Zealand for Sydney in youth...Well, I for one would. Of course you have to leave it when you reach your twenties and you are restless or energetic or ambitious. Capturing the nostalgia of springtime - picnics, dances, the drama of first love - this gentle autobiography tells the story of Douglas Stewart's youth in a New Zealand country town, 'an almost invisible speck on the map about two hundred miles north of the great glittering metropolis of Wellington'. Brimful with mischievous humour and rejoicing of nature, Douglas Stewart offers us a fascinating portrait of the artist as a young man, of leaving home and a world of innocence long past.
Douglas Stewart is the author of The Fire on the Snow, concerning Scott's ill-fated Antarctic expedition, and also a number of books of prose including a collection of short stories A Girl with Red Hair and other Stories, and the non-fiction works The Seven Rivers, Norman Lindsay: A Personal Memoir, A Man of Sydney and Springtime in Taranaki.