TUTTLE, Sarah "The Cannibals: or, a Sketch of New Zealand" [1832] 1st Edition

TUTTLE, Sarah [attrib.]. The Cannibals: or, a Sketch of New Zealand.

Boston: Massachusetts Sabbath School Union, 1832. First edition. 32mo, 5.75" x 3.5", 68pp + [2]pp publisher’s ads. Rebound in quarter leather over marbled boards with new endpapers, likely ca. 1980s. Text lightly foxed but otherwise clean and tight. Near Fine.

Issued as a juvenile missionary tract, The Cannibals is among the earliest English-language books devoted entirely to New Zealand, predating the Treaty of Waitangi by eight years. It is remarkable as one of the first American-published accounts focused on Māori life, albeit cast through a sensational and moralizing lens of “cannibalism.” Such works played an outsized role in shaping Western perceptions of New Zealand, standing in contrast to more serious contemporary missionary and travel narratives. Scarce in commerce, this title occupies an important place in the pre-colonial literature of the Pacific, revealing how British and American readers were introduced to the idea of New Zealand and its people before formal annexation. Bagnall 879.