Peter Simpson (writer)

Simpson was born in Takaka in 1942. He attended Nelson College. He gained a MA (Hons) from the University of Canterbury and a PhD from the University of Toronto with a 1975 thesis titled 'Wordsworth to Hardy : lines of relationship and continuity in nineteenth century English poetry' .[1][2]

He represented the electorate of Lyttelton in Parliament from 1987 to 1990, when he was defeated by Gail McIntosh, one of a number of losses contributing to the fall of the Fourth Labour Government.

Before entering parliament he was chairman of the Lyttelton electorate committee of the Labour Party.[3]

Simpson had been teaching English since the 1960s at various universities. He was at Massey University, University of Toronto and Carleton University.[1] In his last teaching role, he was at the University of Auckland as Associate Professor in the Department of English, and head of English, roles from which he retired in 2008.[4][5]

He is the director of Holloway Press, set up at the University of Auckland in 1994 and named after Ron Holloway (1909–2003), a renowned university printer and publisher.[6][7][8]

• Ronald Hugh Morrieson (Oxford University Press, 1982)
• Candles in a Dark Room: James K. Baxter and Colin McCahon (Auckland Art Gallery, 1996)
• Colin McCahon: The Titirangi Years, 1953–1959 (Auckland University Press, 2007)
• Fantastica: The World of Leo Bensemann (Auckland University Press, 2011)
• Bloomsbury South: The Arts in Christchurch 1933–1953 (Auckland University Press, 2016)
• Colin McCahon: Is this the Promised Land? Vol. 2 1960-1987 (Auckland University Press, 2020)

Simpson lives in Auckland. He is married with two children.