Introduction to Old New Zealand Philip Steer Victoria University February 2004 Frederick Edward Maning is best known as an author, but he was also at times a trader and a judge of the Native Land Court. He was born in Dublin, Ireland on 5 July 1811 or 1812 and immigrated to Tasmania with his family in 1823. He lived in New Zealand from 1833 until 1882, when ill health forced him to seek medical care in England. He died in London on 25 July 1883, but was buried in New Zealand later that year. His Old New Zealand: A Tale of the Good Old Times is one of the few pre-twentieth century New Zealand literary texts that have not descended into obscurity with passing time. Historian Peter Gibbons describes it as perhaps one of the best known and most widely read of all works on early New Zealand and it has often been reprinted.

Per the author: "The book has one high ambition. It has tried to tell the sad story of the wilderness itself-to show, from the woodsman's view-point, the play of great forces which have been tearing down his home and turning it into the flesh and bone of cities." But this story is much more than that. It revolves around Silas Strong and his distaste for the modernization and destruction of his beloved forest surroundings, and how it pleases him to teach younger folk how to appreciate that which has been given us. He takes matters into his own hands, as only Silas Strong can do. Addison Irving Bacheller was an American journalist and writer who founded the first modern newspaper syndicate in the United States. He was a graduate of St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York in 1882.