Design underway for illustrated edition of TUPAIA

The illustrated Tupaia

Yes, the blog had to be put aside.  It was time that had to be devoted entirely (almost) to the design for the beautiful edition of TUPAIA that Random House New Zealand is going to publish in May.  Sorting out the images and writing the captions took up every spare moment over Christmas and the New Year, with the indefatigable Alex Bishop returning to work early January ("It's spooky in the office with no one else there," she confided), to lay out spreadsheets.

Ron was hard at work, too, producing maps and sketches like the one of HMS Dolphin to the right, above.

Now, it is ready to be handed over to the designer, who will work with the first proofs and the images as they come in -- mostly from the amazing collection of the National Library of Australia, but some from the picture collection of the Alexander Turnbull Library, too, with also an honourable mention of the oil painting of Robert Molineux that is held by the Hocken Library of the University of Otago, Dunedin.