Out of print – digital edition available through ebook retailers and our BWB Collections platform.
The archetypal story of Thomas Kendall, a self-torturing, struggling missionary in nineteenth-century New Zealand, is also a remarkable history of cross-cultural experience.
Posted to New Zealand in 1814, Kendall was immensely devout but entirely unprepared for dealing with Māori. He nonetheless helped produce the first Māori Grammar, but was hindered by rumours of an affair with a Māori chief’s daughter. Dismissed from his duties in 1823, he continued studying Māori culture until his death nearly a decade later.
Long out of print, this work by a leading New Zealand historian tells an absorbing story of the difficulties and dangers of the evangelical mission.
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Introduction
Preface to the First Edition
1. The Enthusiast
2. Preliminaries
3. Isolation
4. In England – the Evangelical and the Noble Savage
5. The Missionary and the Māori
6. Sin
7. The Heritage of Isaiah
8. The Lost Soul
Appendix One Thomas Kendall to Josiah Pratt, 27 July 1824
Appendix Two Kendall’s Work in the Māori Language: A Bibliography of Published and Unpublished Material
Appendix Three ‘Conquering Kings their Titles Take’