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Historic "Maoriland" novels - written in New Zealand during the late 1800s - are being launched online, granting the public access to many texts for the first time.
Victoria University has launched the first 30 titles from its collection.
Associate professor of English Jane Stafford says the digital collection represents an important part of New Zealand's cultural history.
"Although the term 'Maoriland' can evoke a world of saccharine fantasy in which heroic Maori warriors and seductive Maori maidens inhabit outmoded Victorian literary forms, this colonial literature is lively, complex and significant, and marks the beginnings of a self-consciously New Zealand literature," she said.
Alison Stevenson of the Electronic Text Centre said the material had been difficult to access in the past, with most books out of print and in some cases only one or two surviving copies, kept carefully in rare-book collections.
"Our hope is that by increasing access to these texts, however bizarre and at times unpalatable some of the writers' opinions might be, this project will stimulate further scholarly examination and a wider appreciation of the importance of this period of New Zealand literary history."
- NZPA
