Still living dangerously
It was Charles Dickens who first raised the idea. Early one morning in January 1847, tiring of life in London, he wrote to his friend John Forster: “Disposed to go to New Zealand and start a magazine.” It was a fine plan, flawed only by the complete lack of a viable readership. Dickens contented himself with publishing some New Zealand stories. It was to be almost a century before the launch of the New Zealand Listener, in 1939. And, by then, Dickens had presciently provided the perfect quote for the circumstances in which the young magazine found itself: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times …” There could hardly be a darker or more inauspicious moment in which to launch a magazine than on the eve of a…
