13 October 2008: Collecting Pandemonium

13 October 2008: Collecting Pandemonium: John Milton in the Alexander Turnbull Library

Collecting Pandemonium: John Milton in the Alexander Turnbull Library
National Library Gallery
2 December 2008 – 14 March 2009

The 17th-century English poet and polemicist John Milton arrived in New Zealand in rather inauspicious circumstances. The Endeavour's botanist, Sir Joseph Banks, used pages from Paradise Lost to press plant specimens collected during Cook's first voyage. Another edition of the epic poem came as part of Charles Darwin's library on the Beagle in 1835.

But all of this activity does not account for why the Alexander Turnbull Library holds one of the world's best collections of Milton and "Miltoniana". This distinction rests with Library founder Alexander Horsburgh Turnbull, and his visionary commitment to establishing a Milton collection in Wellington.

A new exhibition at the National Library Gallery showcases Alexander Turnbull's collecting of Milton, and the Library's ongoing commitment to expanding and enhancing this rich inheritance.

The exhibition begins by tracing the collection's humble origins to Alexander Turnbull's school days. A cheap copy of Milton's Early Poems is covered with Turnbull's schoolboy scrawls and drawings. Roughly sketched plans for fielding positions on a cricket pitch suggest that Milton may not have always held the young Turnbull's attention.

The horde of valuable first editions on display demonstrates that the adult Turnbull's attention was more focused. He collected widely in and around Milton's work, often annotating volumes to draw connections or dispute current research. Correspondence with London book dealers reveals just how Turnbull managed to amass such an impressive collection.

'Collecting Pandemonium' showcases the full range of Milton holdings in the Alexander Turnbull Library. Highlights include: elaborate fine print editions of Milton’s work, a collection of his radical pamphlets, lavishly illustrated versions of Paradise Lost, and translations of his great poem into many languages – from Swedish, Welsh, Tongan, Greek to Ancient Armenian.

This exhibition marks the 400th anniversary of Milton's birth. It also accompanies 'Miltonic Origins/Miltonic Innovations: Milton’s poetry and thought in new world societies and cultures', an international symposium being held at the Alexander Turnbull Library in December. The symposium and exhibition continue a long tradition of the Alexander Turnbull Library actively contributing to Milton studies on a world stage.