Godley Gifts website launched

Limited Edition of 100 hand-numbered and hand-dedicated sets (81 still remaining for purchase), each set containing an exact replica copy of New Zealand's first illustrated children's book, called Seadrift. Apart from this Edition, no replica copies of Seadrift will ever again be published.

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On 20 March, at Christ Church, Oxford, Christopher Godley (Lord Kilbracken) will present a copy of the multiple prize-winning bookset, Godley Gifts, to the college's library, where it will be housed alongside the manuscript material of Alice in Wonderland.

Alice was written at Christ Church by one of its 'dons', for the daughter of the then Dean of Christ Church. Seadrift (New Zealand's first illustrated children's story and star of the Godley Gifts' bookset publication) was written in Canterbury by one of its officers, for the son of the then 'governor' of Canterbury and 'Christ Church', New Zealand.

The presentation of Godley Gifts, in the college's magnificent rococo Upper Library, will be hosted by Christopher Lewis, Dean of Christ Church, and his wife Rhona. It will be quite a grand affair, with accompanying dinner in the college's Great Hall and accommodation in The Deanery (Alice's former home), for the guests: Lord Kilbracken; His Excellency NZ High Commissioner Derek Leask and partner, Patricia Stevenson; Sir Anthony Acland, former British Ambassador to Washington and an Honorary Student of Christ Church, and Lady Acland; Cantabrian Mrs Mary Weston, daughter of the late Major-General Sir Howard Kippenberger, and Mrs Jenifer Roberts, descendent and biographer of Seadrift's author and watercolourist, James Edward FitzGerald.