Absurd Ambition

Eric McCormick was, from about 1940 until his death in 1995, one of New Zealand's most distinguished writers and scholars. He pioneered the appreciation and study of the painter Francis Hodgkins, and he wrote several biographies. The autobiographical fragments collected here have been edited to make a coherent volume, tracing his origins in Taihape, to school and university in Wellington, to schoolteaching in Nelson, to Cambridge and through his wartime experiences and role as editor of Centennial Publications. It includes his shrewd observations of social behaviour, recorded with a dry wit.

Eric Hall McCormick was a biographer, critic, and historian. He wrote several biographies, including Portrait of Frances Hodgkins and The Friend of Keats: A Life of Charles Armitage Brow. The E. H. McCormick Non-Fiction Award was established in his honor. McCormick was named President of Honour by the New Zealand Society of Authors in both 1976 and 1977.