By PHOEBE FALCONER
Dennis McEldowney, author and editor, died aged 77.
Dennis McEldowney described his 20 years as editor of the Auckland University Press as "working it up to the kind of job I wouldn't have been appointed to".
And he was probably right; he got the position in 1966 on the strength of three years as librarian at Knox College, when a masters degree was held to be the minimum qualification.
After several years in the job, McEldowney noticed that there was a dearth of New Zealand novels more than five years old in print, so he began republishing books such as Robin Hyde's Godwits Fly and Brown Man's Burden by Roderick Finlayson.
In 1976, the publishing of Keith Sinclair's biography of Sir Walter Nash brought instant controversy.
"It revealed that the SIS had said that public protests about the absence of Maori players in the 1960 All Black tour of South Africa were communist-inspired," said McEldowney. "They indicated that they wanted certain parts of the book deleted. In the resulting fuss it became a bestseller, and I've always thanked the SIS for that!"
McEldowney was the author of several autobiographical books. His first, The World Regained, recalls his childhood, which was restricted through a heart condition that made him a "blue baby", and the discovery of a new world after life-saving surgery.
The publication of what were essentially his diaries in Full of the Warm South recalled his life in Dunedin during the 1960s. This is the period when Maurice Shadbolt, Maurice Gee and Janet Frame were at Otago University as Burns Fellows, and the Lloyd Geering furore was at its height. McEldowney's diaries observed people and the minutiae of everyday life.
His first job was as a part-time assistant typist at the School of Physical Education in Dunedin. At 37, it was his first job away from home, as his physical condition until the time of his surgery had precluded any move.
It was this condition that brought McEldowney into contact with Zoe Greenhough, who had also been a blue baby. Their shared treatment by cardiac surgeon Sir Douglas Robb gave them a strong bond, which after 17 years of courtship led to marriage. Shaking the Bee Tree is McEldowney's tribute to his wife's early illness, and is dense with the domestic detail.
McEldowney contributed the chapter on publishing, patronage and literary magazines in the Oxford History of New Zealand Literature. On his retirement from the Auckland University Press in 1986, he was awarded an honorary doctorate of literature.
McEldowney and his wife, who died in 1990, had no children.
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