Mystery continues to shroud the hand behind the pen, even if a ready explanation is available for the nom de plume itself.
Historian Dr Dominic Alessio says the pseudonym employed by the anonymous author of The Great Romance was sometimes used for guidebooks in both the United Kingdom and the United States in the late 19th century.
"The choice of nomenclature appears appropriate since the work purports to be, in part, a kind of guidebook from the perspective of a future traveller," Dr Alessio writes in his introduction to the recently republished work.
As far as the identity behind the pseudonym goes, the editor of the National Biography of New Zealand to the Year 1960, A. G. Bagnall, plumped for one "Honnor of Ashburton" as his author of the 1881 science-fiction book.
Other evidence also points in that direction.
With the assistance of librarians at the Hocken Library, Dunedin, Dr Alessio discovered an annotation by Dr Thomas Hocken that mentions this same author.
"A search of various New Zealand databases identified one Henry Honnor who had settled in Dunedin in 1858 but was listed as a carpenter by profession.
"In the 1880s a Henry Honor (with a single "N") was also apparently working as a carpenter in Blenheim . . .
"To compound the mystery of the author's identity," writes Dr Alessio, "yet another Henry Honor, this one from New Plymouth, also owned land in the Ashburton vicinity.
Furthermore, two farmers by the names of Herbert Honour and Henry Honour are listed in the 1880-1881 Ashburton Electoral Roll.
Unfortunately, there is no evidence linking the Dunedin-based Honnor, or any other Honors or Honours, to the text."
Melbourne-based science fiction researcher and former Otago Settlers Museum archivist Murray MacLachlan strengthens the case for Henry Honnor.
He claims he discovered the identity of the author in the Lyttelton Times.
The book's launch was apparently covered by the paper "and the reporter names The Inhabitant as one Henry Honnor".
"I have a photocopy of the [newpaper] card [index] and the clipping somewhere."
Mr McLachlan went to Ashburton in an effort to confirm the identity but despite no further leads, remains convinced Henry Honnor is the author.
Garry J. Tee, of the University of Auckland's department of mathematics, has also delved into the mystery of the book's author.
He suggests the scribe's introductory dedication to John Keats in volume 1 (which has no explanation and no obvious link with the story itself) is similar to another sonnet dedicated to Keats that was also published in Dunedin in 1881.
"The introductory poem dedicated to John Keats reminded me of another poem to Keats written in New Zealand around that same period," Dr Tee says.
"About 30 years ago, I gave to our library a book which I had bought in London: New Zealand Verse, collected by W. F. Alexander and A. E. Currie . . .
I consulted that copy and found there a "Sonnet to Keats", written by Ebenezer Storry Hay, reprinted from E. S. Hay's Some Characteristics of Wordsworth's Poetry and their Lessons for Us.
"It seems extremely improbable that two writers would have published poems addressed to Keats, both in Dunedin and both in 1881."
Dr Tee consulted the Hocken Library and discovered a pamphlet by Hay containing that lecture on Wordsworth's poetry and several poems by Hay, who published verse in Dunedin newspapers under the name "Fleta".
Dr Hocken had written a note on the title page of that pamphlet, telling that Ebenezer Storry Hay, "a solicitor in Dunedin of quaint quiet habits and little practice", committed suicide in 1887.
Dr Hocken published a similar note in the entry on that pamphlet in his Bibliography of the Literature relating to New Zealand (1909).
Dr Tee says an obituary for Hay also contained poems compatible in style and mood with the dedicatory poem to John Keats in The Great Romance "and could very well have been written by the same person".
However, Dr Alessio contends there is no direct evidence to definitively link Hay with The Great Romance.
"Unfortunately, the destruction by fire of the Ashburton Guardian's offices has made it impossible to check old records.
In an attempt to identify `The Inhabitant', searches have also been conducted of various Dunedin newspapers from 1881, including the Otago Daily Times, Echo, Illustrated New Zealand Herald, and Saturday Advertiser, as well as the literary sections of the Otago Witness, all to no avail," Dr Alessio says.
"The only known contemporaneous reference to the novellas is an anonymous review that appeared on page one [sic: it was actually part of a supplementary publication] of the Otago Daily Times of February 18, 1882, which alludes to the volumes being the work of `a young writer'.
We are left . . . with a text without an ending and no clear idea about the identity of the author."
University of Otago Emeritus Prof Lawrence Jones, an expert in 20th-century New Zealand literature, worked on a section on the novella for the Oxford History of New Zealand Literature in English.
At the time, he was aware of multiple mysteries surrounding the publication of 19th-century novels.
"There are missing authors, seemingly unfinished serials, books mentioned somewhere but not listed in Bagnall or the Hocken or Turnbull catalogues," Prof Jones explains.
