“New Zealand ferns collected for Miss Grahame by her friends at Hazelbank, Auckland, 1860”.

[Auckland, New Zealand : s.n., 1860]. Handmade album. Octavo (190 x 120 mm), the covers taken from a copy of The poetical works of Sir Walter Scott (Edinburgh : A. & C. Black, 1857), of limp tan cloth with decoration in blind and gilt device to front and rear; the book’s original pastedowns and endpapers intentionally preserved, the front free-endpaper with a mounted presentation label inscribed in ink in a neat hand: ‘New Zealand ferns collected for Miss Grahame by her friends at Hazelbank, Auckland, 1860’, followed by [28] loose sheets with pressed native fern specimens mounted recto only, each accompanied by a handwritten caption identifying the specimen by its correct botanical name; the skilfully mounted and knowledgeably labelled specimens with very occasional minor loss, the paper mounts with a minimal amount of foxing, but overall the contents remarkable well preserved.

This charming “do-it-yourself” Auckland album represents by far the earliest collection of New Zealand ferns we have handled. Although pteridomania – or fern fever – was undeniably already a phenomenon in the colony in the 1860s, the album pre-dates by at least a decade, for example, the appearance of the first commercial souvenir albums by such specialist preparators as Eric Craig and Thomas Cranwell.

The specimens in this album were clearly selected for their aesthetic appeal, the majority being particularly delicate and skeletal-like. We believe that the young woman to whom the album was presented by her friends, identified only as Miss Grahame, is likely to have been a daughter of Auckland merchant Walter Grahame. (Walter’s brother, the wealthy and influential William Smellie Grahame, had already returned to England with his own family by 1858). “Hazelbank” was the name of a property in Wynyard Street, Auckland which was later owned by Māori businesswoman and philanthropist Mary Geddes. It is now the home of the Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland.