The National Library Research Fellow for 2005 has been revealed, and it's Dr Joanna Woods.

She’s a biographer from Wellington who has, rather mysteriously, a PhD from Moscow State University. She used it to write a book called Katerina: the Russian world of Katherine Mansfield in 2001. Mansfield was famously obsessed with all things Russian, going so far as to die surrounded by them (Russians), and Dr Woods’ portrayal of this endearing and understandable oddity apparently makes everyone who reads it go all gooey. This includes major Mansfielder Vincent O'Sullivan, who said it made more sense of her last months than anything he has read.

Well. Woods' intention with the $45,000 fellowship is to write the biography of Charles Nalder Baeyertz (1866-1943), a New Zealander who will be unfamiliar to most of us but who sounds fascinating. He was described as 'the most forceful and picturesque personality' in early NZ periodicals, but is pretty much forgotten today, despite there being a wealth of information available in The Alexander Turnbull Library’s archives. Why all the info? Baeyertz started New Zealand’s first cultural magazine, The Triad.

The magazine ran for 34 years, from 1893 to 1927, and was a portrayal of the literary, musical and artistic tastes of the time. The Library has most of the issues, plus lots of associated material concerning the social and cultural climate of those years, which Dr Woods also plans to fully plunder, and jolly good on her. (The Library also bought, in 2001, a trunk full of Katherine Mansfield’s personal effects, which included in its contents a long tress of her chestnut hair, wrapped in a linen handkerchief. Oo-er … quite makes me shiver.)

Woods first came across Baeyertz while researching Katherine Mansfield’s teenage years in Wellington, and found it surprising that no-one has yet attempted his biography, or to asses his influence on the culture of the time. She said

Although the book will be structured biographically, one of its aims will be to throw a new light on the rich cultural life of New Zealanders during a period that is often dismissed as being devoid of literary or artistic merit.

A spot of net trawling however, shows that at least one other person found Charles of interest; one G. A. K. Baughen whipped up a wee document for the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography in 1993, and updated it this time last year. Interesting reading.

Anyhoo, I have digressed, and it’s way past my bedtime. I’ll just say that Dr Woods has recently collaborated on another book on Mansfield together with Vincent O'Sullivan and CK Stead, which will be out ... soon (she said somewhat evasively). She takes up the Library fellowship in March 2005. Over and out.