A Deserter's Adventures
The autobiography of Dom Felice Vaggioli, translated by John Crockett

Dom Felice Vaggioli wrote this autobiography between 1909 and 1911, after the publication in Italy of his History of New Zealand and its Inhabitants. One of the first Benedictine monks to be sent to New Zealand, he arrived in 1879 and returned home in 1887, having worked in Gisbourne, Auckland and the Coromandel.

The manuscript remained in teh archives og Viaggioli's monastery and was never published. It was found by John Crockett while researching the background to his translation of the History. Its New Zealand section is published here for the first time, with an essay by historian Rory Sweetman.

'A Deserter's Adventures' is Vaggioli's title, as he was a concientious objector, or 'draft-dodger', as a young monk and so termed himself 'a deserter'. This is typical of the individual who emerges from these pages: always questioning, and always applying a strong sense of justice and fine logic to the many dilemmas he found himself in as a missionary priest in New Zealand.

Biography / history
Paperback, 230 x 155, 274 pages, b/w illustrations
ISBN 978 1877276 11 8, $49.95