Collecting Pandemonium: John Milton in the Alexander Turnbull Library
The 17th-century English poet and polemicist John Milton arrived in New Zealand under rather inauspicious circumstances. The Endeavour's botanist, 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 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 primarily rests with Library founder Alexander Horsburgh Turnbull, and his visionary commitment to establishing a Milton collection in Wellington.
Turnbull's motives in forming a Milton collection have been fiercely scrutinised. Was this simply 'a rich man’s indulgence'? Was Turnbull striving to connect colonial New Zealand to its European cultural heritage? Did collecting Milton offer a cheaper alternative to Shakespeare?
Whatever his motivation, in 1918 Turnbull bequeathed to the nation a collection with two cores: everything related to New Zealand, and the works of John Milton. The Library has continued to extend this rich inheritance through purchase, gift and bequest.
This online exhibition samples items included in the 2008 National Library Gallery exhibition marking the 400th anniversary of Milton's birth. It explores the relationship between Alexander Turnbull and John Milton, the collector and the collected. Starting with the young Turnbull studying Milton's poetry from a cheap textbook, the exhibition ends with items from the Alexander Turnbull Library's world-renowned Milton collection.
This cheap schoolbook may be the starting point of Alexander Turnbull's Milton collection.
Schoolyard vandalism of a textbook, or evidence of an early fascination with Milton?
Greater artists than Alexander Turnbull have illustrated Milton's poem 'Comus'.
And where did John Milton field Mr Turnbull?
Starting a Milton collection in 1890s Wellington was no easy task.
This decorative fine-print book captures the charm and whimsy of Milton’s 'Comus'.
Milton's words translated across art forms and languages.
A palace for 'all the demons'.
The Alexander Turnbull Library continues to collect fine-print editions of Milton's poetry.
The Library's entire Milton collection was put on public display as part of an exhibition in 1994.
