Maurice Duggan
Maurice Noel Duggan (25 November 1922 – 11 December 1974) was a New Zealand writer of short fiction.
Life overview
Born in Auckland and raised on the city’s North Shore, Duggan was mentored by Frank Sargeson and was friendly with many of the important writers of the day, including Greville Texidor, John Reece Cole, Keith Sinclair and Kendrick Smithyman. He married Barbara Platts, a physiotherapist, in February 1946, and they had one son, Nicholas.
Duggan displayed no interest in literature as a child, but the loss of his left leg in 1940 through acute osteomyelitis generated his desire to write. He later contracted tuberculosis while visiting Spain in late 1952. In 1960 Duggan was the second recipient of the newly established Robert Burns Fellowship (the first was Ian Cross), which provided a writer with a lecturer's salary for one year at Otago University. During his year as Burns Fellow, Duggan worked on his unpublished novel The Burning Miss Bratby, and the short story 'Riley's Handbook.' From 1961 Duggan worked in advertising, eventually becoming a member of the Board of Directors of the firm, J. Inglis Wright. He received the New Zealand Literary Fund Scholarship in 1966 and had a year free from advertising work to concentrate on fiction. A crisis with alcoholism precipitated Duggan's resignation from advertising in late 1972, and after a period of painful but successful recovery he learned in late 1973 that he had contracted cancer.
Duggan was primarily a stylist. His story 'Six Place Names and a Girl,' to which Sargeson contributed the title, was an early success, with its minimal plot and its brief, evocative descriptions of the Hauraki Plains. It was published in Charles Brasch's quarterly, Landfall, in 1949, as was most of Duggan's later fiction. In the early 1960s Duggan published two stories in Landfall, ‘Riley’s Handbook’ and ‘Along Rideout Road that Summer,’ which moved New Zealand literature decisively away from its long-dominant tradition of social realism.
Literary works
Short story collections
- Immanuel's Land (1956)
- Summer in the Gravel Pit (1965)
- O'Leary's Orchard (1970)
- Collected Stories (1981) edited by C.K. Stead
Children’s literature
- Falter Tom and the Water Boy (1957)
- The Fabulous McFanes and Other Children’s Stories (1974)
Poetry
- A Voice for the Minotaur: Selected Poems (2001)
Unpublished works
- The Burning Miss Bratby
Short stories
Title | Publication | Collected in |
---|---|---|
"Faith of Our Fathers" | Barjai 19 (1945) | Collected Stories |
"Machinery Me" | Anvil 1 (September 1945) | |
"Notes on an Abstract Arachnid" | Speaking for Ourselves, ed. Sargeson (1945) | |
"Still Life" aka "Short Story" | Book 7 (February 1946) | |
"Old Man" | Anvil 2 (June 1946) | |
"Conversation Piece" | Book 9 (July 1947) | |
"That Long, Long Road" | Kiwi (1947) | |
"Sunbrown" | Kiwi (1948) | |
"Listen to the Mocking Bird" | Kiwi (1948) | |
"Six Place Names and a Girl" | Landfall 9 (March 1949) | Immanuel's Land |
"Wheels to Glory" | New Zealand Listener (April 6, 1950) | - |
"A Small Story" aka "Each Day Has Its Own Rules" | New Zealand Listener (April 6, 1950) | Immanuel's Land |
"Guardian" | Points 11-12 (Winter 1951) | |
"Race Day" | New Zealand Listener (February 22, 1952) | |
"The Killer" | New Zealand Listener (March 28, 1952) | |
"Now Is the Hour" | Here & Now (May 1953) | |
"In Youth Is Pleasure" | Landfall 28 (December 1953) | |
"The Life and Death of an Unknown Pioneer" | Here & Now (July 1954) | - |
"Voyage" | Landfall 19 (September 1951) Landfall 24 (December 1952) Landfall 31 (September 1954) | Immanuel's Land |
"Chapter" | Landfall 34 (June 1955) | |
"Towards the Mountains" | Numbers 3 (June 1955) | |
"Salvation Sunday" | Immanuel's Land (1956) | |
"The Deposition" aka "Book One: A Fragment of a Work Abandoned" | Numbers 8 (July 1958) | Summer in the Gravel Pit |
"The Departure" | Image 5 (April 1959) | |
"The Wits of Willie Graves" | University of Otago Review (1960) | |
"Blues for Miss Laverty" | Landfall 56 (December 1960) | |
"Riley's Handbook" | Landfall 60 (December 1961) | O'Leary's Orchard |
"Along Rideout Road That Summer" | Landfall 65 (March 1963) | Summer in the Gravel Pit |
"For the Love of Rupert" | Summer in the Gravel Pit (1965) | |
"O'Leary's Orchard" | Landfall 81 (March 1967) | O'Leary's Orchard |
"An Appetite for Flowers" | Landfall 83 (September 1967) | |
"The Magsman Miscellany" | New Zealand Short Stories: Fourth Series (1984) | Collected Stories |
References
To Bed at Noon: the Life and Art of Maurice Duggan (1997) by Ian Richards
External links
- Duggan, Maurice Noel in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography
- New Zealand Book Council homepage
- University of Auckland New Zealand Literature File
- v
- t
- e
- 1959 Ian Cross
- 1960 Maurice Duggan
- 1961 John Caselberg
- 1962 R.A.K. Mason
- 1963 Maurice Shadbolt
- 1964 Maurice Gee
- 1965 Janet Frame
- 1966–67 James K. Baxter
- 1968 Ruth Dallas
- 1969 Warren Dibble
- 1970 O. E. Middleton
- 1971 Noel Hilliard
- 1972 Ian Wedde
- 1973 Graham Billing
- 1974 Hone Tuwhare
- 1975 Witi Ihimaera
- 1976 Sam Hunt
- 1977 Keri Hulme
- 1977–78 Roger Hall
- 1978 Peter Olds
- 1979 Michael A. Noonan
- 1980 Philip Temple
- 1981–82 William Sewell
- 1983 Rawiri Paratene
- 1984 Brian Turner
- 1985–86 Cilla McQueen
- 1987 Robert Lord
- 1988 John Dickson
- 1989 Renée
- 1990 David Eggleton
- 1991 Lynley Hood
- 1992 Owen Marshall
- 1993 Stuart Hoar
- 1994 Christine Johnston
- 1995 Elspeth Sandys
- 1996 Bernadette Hall
- 1997 Paddy Richardson
- 1998–99 Michael King
- 1999 Paula Boock
- 2000 James Norcliffe
- 2001 Jo Randerson
- 2002 Alison Wong
- 2003 Nick Ascroft
- 2003 Sarah Quigley
- 2004 Kate Duignan
- 2005–06 Catherine Chidgey
- 2006 Dianne Ruth Pettis
- 2007 Laurence Fearnley
- 2008 Sue Wootton
- 2009 Michael Harlow
- 2010 Michele Powles
- 2011 Fiona Farrell
- 2012 Emma Neale
- 2013 David Howard
- 2014 Majella Cullinane
- 2015 Louise Wallace
- 2016 Victor Rodger
- 2017 Craig Cliff
- 2018 Rhian Gallagher
- 2019 Emily Duncan
- 2020 John Newton
- 2021 Becky Manawatu
- 2022 Albert Belz
- 2023 Kathryn van Beek
- 2024 Mikaela Nyman