A.H. Reed’s hand-illuminated wartime diary

A facsimile edition of Reed’s diary was published as First walks in New Zealand in a limited edition of 750 copies in 2007 in commemoration of 100 years of Reed Publishing.

The current Reed Gallery exhibition, By Deed of Gift: The Founding of the Reed Collection, 1948 showcases several of A.H. Reed’s hand-illuminated autograph letter albums. Reed inserted several hundred letters, many penned by important historical figures, into albums, adding portraits where available, all supplemented with biographical notes and quotes in his calligraphic hand.

In early 2018, these collections were aptly complimented by the Dunedin Public Library’s acquisition of a 124-page hand-illuminated diary compiled by Reed for his wife Isabel during his spare time at Featherston Camp in 1917. In this early expression of his love of walking, Reed describes the idyllic rural settings in which he wandered, far from the horrors of Europe.

Entitled In and Around Featherston Military Camp and (Mostly) Elsewhere, the diary is written in double columns with large capitals and pasted in sepia photographs of soldiers in the camp, local landscapes and townscape views. This manuscript book is bound in morocco leather with a gilt-decorated border and embossed roundel containing Isabel Reed’s initials.

Reed’s diary is currently on display in the tall case outside the Reed Gallery on the third floor of the City Library, returned to what feels like its rightful home.