Caring for the C K Stead collection

Mahi Whanake team

Mahi Whanake is a team that was formed to rapidly process large and complex collections. Currently, the team is Merryn McAulay, Senior Archivist, Special Projects; Nathan Burgess, Research Librarian; Ivan Wilby, Librarian, Special Projects; and Louise Newdick, Conservator.

The team is working on three collections — Shona Rapira Davies' artist papers, John Scott's architectural plans and C K Stead's literary papers. We're proud to announce that the C K Stead collection is now available to researchers at the Alexander Turnbull Library.

Stead, Christian Karlson, 1932- : Collection (ATL-Group-00771)

Christian Karlson “Karl” Stead ONZ CBE

Christian Karlson “Karl” Stead ONZ CBE — known as C K Stead to his readers, and Karl to friends — is one of New Zealand's most famous and celebrated writers. Known internationally for his novels, he is also a prolific poet, literary critic, and Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Auckland. Stead was honoured as the Poet Laureate of New Zealand from 2015-2017. He received the CBE in 1985 and ONZ in 2007.

The latest accrual to C K Stead's existing collection of papers is the remaining balance of his total literary output to date. It is the fourth and by far largest accrual of material purchased from Stead. Previous accruals were made in 1989, 2001, and 2005.

The material comprises over 12,000 individual pieces of correspondence as well as 79 notebooks and diaries, literary drafts, research material, essays, speeches, reviews, and newspaper cuttings. It also includes audio recordings of radio interviews and poetry readings with Stead and his contemporaries.

This material covers decades of Stead's life, from the 1950s to the 2010s, and is an important resource for researchers interested in New Zealand literature.

Central figure in New Zealand literature since the 1950s

From the late 1950s Stead was writing poetry and submitting it to newspapers; he went on to publish collections of poetry, novels, literary criticism, essays, and autobiographies. The collection showcases how many of these works came about by Stead’s careful assembly of notes, ideas, and drafts. He gave as much thought to collecting examples of how his works were received, with many folders’ worth of reviews clipped from newspapers, magazines and journals, showing praise and criticism alike.

A prolific letter writer, Stead kept decades’ worth of letters sent and received (and later emails). He and his wife Kay and their children wrote to each other extensively while he was overseas — almost every other day. The letters are like diary entries sent to the other side of the world. They unfold over a couple of days and Stead’s letters often have timestamps in the margins that indicate the next instalment of writing.

Over the years the Steads lived next door to Frank Sargeson and on the same street as Allen Curnow, both of whom feature in the nearly 200 folders of correspondence. Letters from Janet Frame, Maurice Gee, A S Byatt, Michael King, and more are mixed in with publishers, literary festival organisers, fans, and schoolchildren who had been assigned to read his novels and poems.

Autobiographies

Correspondence in particular forms a significant part of the research Stead undertook for his series of three autobiographies published between 2010 and 2021: South-West of Eden: A Memoir, 1931-1956; You Have a Lot to Lose: A Memoir, 1956-1986; and What You Made of It: A Memoir, 1987-2020.

Most recently in 2021, he published the third and final volume of his memoirs. Several reviews at the time focussed on Stead's claim to be ‘a truthful recorder’; it is evident that the memoirs draw on a lot of the correspondence deposited in the most recent accrual.

There are handwritten annotations from Stead on the envelope enclosures noting when they were read and which memoir they were used for.

Writing South West of Eden was almost entirely from memories of childhood and youth, so virtually no research — no documents, or very few — and it just flowed out of me. You Have a Lot to Lose covers a time when we all wrote so many letters to one another, and tended to keep the replies, so it was quite a different process. Memory was important, but the records had to be constantly checked — and the dates. And there was so much material to choose from, it was partly a process of selection.
— C K Stead, in a June 2020 interview with Stuff

Film adaptations — Smith’s Dream to Sleeping Dogs

In 1977, Stead’s first novel Smith’s Dream was adapted into the film Sleeping Dogs. The film helped launch the careers of director Roger Donaldson and actor Sam Neill, and its success showed that New Zealand could produce films that would attract international audiences.

But though this was the only one of Stead’s novels to be adapted for film, this was not his only foray into the world of filmmaking. Two other novels became film scripts — Villa Vittoria adapted by Stead, and My Name was Judas adapted by Guy Hamling — and Roger Donaldson was interested in returning to film Villa Vittoria.

Unfortunately, neither project made it past the pre-production stage due to a lack of funding, but the scripts included in this collection show what might have been. The Villa Vittoria script can be found at MS-Papers-12831-099 with a film treatment at MS-Papers-9894, and the script for My Name was Judas can be found at MS-Papers-12831-158.

What’s next? Digital preservation

Along with the manuscripts and the sound recordings (which will be digitised as part of the Utaina project), Stead provided a stack of floppy disks and a laptop computer that may contain drafts of his novels and other writing.

The final piece of work on this collection is currently being undertaken by our digital archivists who are working to transfer the digital files from their original obsolete floppy disk media to a contemporary and accessible location.

If the files are recoverable they will be assessed by the curator to see which should be included in Stead’s collection, and once they are fully described they will be available to researchers via the National Digital Heritage Archive.

Library collections with material related to C K Stead

C K Stead maintained a wide literary circle of friends, and the Library holds many collections and items of those New Zealanders. Below is a list of relevant collections which also include material related to C K Stead.

• Sargeson, Frank, 1903-1982 : Papers (MS-Group-0071)

• Curnow, Thomas Allen Monro, 1911-2001 : Papers (MS-Group-2168)

• Kidman, Fiona Judith (Dame), 1940- : Papers (MS-Group-0067)

• King, Michael (Dr), 1945-2004: Collection (ATL-Group-00620)

• Duggan, Maurice Noel, 1922-1974 : Papers (MS-Papers-1760)

• Shadbolt, Maurice Francis Richard, 1932-2004 : Papers and recordings (ATL-Group-00686)

• Frame, Janet, 1924-2004: Collection (MS-Group-0528)

• Brasch, Charles Orwell, 1909-1973 (name record)

Further reading

Read our 2017 blog celebrating C K Stead's tenure as New Zealand Poet Laureate and the publication of his book of poetry — ‘In the mirror, and dancing’

Poet Laureate blog