First New Edition in 67 Years of Pioneering NZ Gay Novel 'A Way of Love'

By Lurid Editions | Posted: Wednesday Sep 16, 2026

Lurid Editions will publish the first new edition since 1959 of James Courage's A Way of Love on 24 September — a novel widely regarded as the first gay novel by a New Zealander, and one whose rediscovery in recent years owes much to research and archival work based in Ōtepoti.

A Way of Love was originally published by Jonathan Cape in Britain in 1959. Set among gay men in late-1950s London, it follows two men attempting to build a life together at a time when sex between men remained criminalised. In 1961, the novel was banned in New Zealand on grounds of indecency.

James was born in Christchurch in 1903 and grew up near Amberley before leaving New Zealand for England at eighteen. He spent almost all of his adult life in Britain, but New Zealand remained central to his fiction, with five of his eight novels set there.

His queer writing repeatedly ran up against the limits of what could be published or performed. His 1938 play Private History was denied a West End licence because of its homosexual subject matter, and A Way of Love itself underwent substantial revisions before Jonathan Cape agreed to publish it.

The Hocken Collections at the University of Otago hold James' literary papers, including manuscripts, journals and correspondence. Chris Brickell, Professor of Gender Studies at the University of Otago, drew extensively on those papers while editing the James Courage Diaries, published by Otago University Press in 2021. Chris has also written the afterword to this new edition, alongside an introduction by Peter Parker.

Surviving reader correspondence offers a striking counterpoint to the novel's hostile critical reception. James wrote of receiving "wonderfully enthusiastic letters from strangers," including from gay readers who saw their own lives reflected in the book.

One admirer in Invercargill even sent him an enormous handmade Christmas card depicting Santa reading A Way of Love "with avid but astonished interest" while almost toppling off a pile of James' own books. James noted in his diary, with evident delight: "There's fame for you!"

The novel's censorship history has since become embedded in New Zealand's literary calendar. In 1998, the New Zealand Society of Authors/PEN established Courage Day, named jointly after James and his grandmother Sarah Courage in recognition of their shared experiences of literary censorship.

Lurid Editions' new edition of A Way of Love will appear just ahead of Banned Books Week (4–10 October) and ahead of Courage Day itself on 15 November.

Find out more and pre-order here: A Way of Love - Pre-Order — Lurid Editions