Peter Tait

Life has been busy since the publication of ‘Thomas Hardy’s Women  –  In Life and Literature’  in October, 2020 in the middle of Covid – hardly an auspicious time for promoting and marketing a new book. This followed two novels based on the lives of Hardy’s wives, Emma and Florence, which were published in hardback and paperback.  While I occasionally talk and write on aspects of Hardy’s life and works, I felt that I had sufficiently scratched that itch and that it was time for something new. 

What I have been working on, however, is not ‘new’ as the manuscript entitled ‘Outliers of Empire: The British Empire and its Pacific Territories, 1870 – 1914‘  had been gestating for years. It was a labour of love, knowing from early on it was not likely to have a market. Ray Richards of Richards Publishing (NZ) explained in 2007 that ‘The former British colonies , excluding Australia and New Zealand, have insufficient prospective readers, primarily in the universities, to make its publication profitable for a publisher.’  When I put it out there again in 2025, Michael Dwyer of Hurst Publications made the same point: ‘While the team and I liked the proposal and indeed the writing, we just could not convince ourselves that the book would find a readership beyond specialists in universities.‘   But, personally, that wasn’t really important. As a historian, it was an indulgence and while a slimmed down book of the Pacific Colonies without the bibliography of the empire  debate may eventuate in time, I enjoyed myself researching and writing it.

Currently I am working on a biography of the career of a leading New Zealand entrepreneur provisionally entitled ‘Defying Gravity’, with a likely date of publication of late 2027. 

Most exciting , however, is a novel that I have started several years ago (provisional title, ‘All That we Inherit’) that is to be published by the Book Guild in January, 2027. More on that later . . . .