The audience of History of the New Zealanders, a text with such a specific topic, couldn’t be too far-reaching, could it? As a matter of fact, many signs point to a reasonably sized circulation. Based on the text’s size, presumed cost, and the topic of the text, it can be inferred that the text was able to be widely distributed. 

 

In terms of size and design, this was no spectacular work of art. Its small size is perfect to be carried around by an average reader and it is clear that the book has been opened many times, likely by numerous people. The effects of abundant use are most evident in the spine. The spine that had been additionally bound to the text has been replaced by a strip of tape, suggesting that the original had been worn down enough to have needed replacement. There is no way to determine what the original spine was, but based on the rest of the binding, I doubt it was anything special. Other aspects that point to a cheaply made book are the cover, paper, ink, and typeface. The cover is rough and undecorated, the paper is cheap, the typeface is common and ink is black. No images have been printed or painted in color, so there was no extra cost for specialty inks. The inexpensive materials and common type of binding suggest that there was a large production for these texts. A larger production of books means a large audience, which rules out this text being specially printed for people with a specific interest in the history of New Zealanders.

Based on the title, the topic itself seems to be for a specialized audience. One might suspect that only historians would be interested in such a text as History of the New Zealanders, but many historical factors could make the text attractive for the common reader. By the time of the publishing of History of the New Zealanders, James Cook’s explorations remained among the most recent major discoveries, and New Zealand was the largest landmass among them. There would no doubt be interest in the subject by this text’s publishing.

If people are still talking about this newly discovered territory, it would make sense that the History of the New Zealanders could be picked up and read by anyone interested in hot topics of the time. 

The text itself garners more clues about who the audience could be. Although it was printed in New England, the voice of the writer is clearly English, as I have discussed in my previous posts. (I have surmised this specifically because of the author’s references to English locations, though numerous other aspects support this claim.) Naturally, this would suggest that the author’s target audience knows the English world well, narrowing down the audience a bit more.

In summary, the audience of History of the New Zealanders was likely a member of middle-class England or New England that had a casual interest in such topics as exploration or discovery. It is doubtful that the readers would be able to travel to such a place, so reading about it in this manner would allow them to gain knowledge (however Westernized) of the newly discovered country.