J.C. Beaglehole, historian and Cook scholar, was also a passionate writer of letters. He wrote frequently, at length and throughout his life, to family, friends and colleagues - wittily, affectionately, intimately, eruditely, acerbically, and always with an eye to style - and left a large and rich correspondence. This selection, made by his son and biographer, has been chosen to reflect the range of J.C. Beaglehole's associations and interests - in history, particularly his scholarly field of Cook and the Pacific, in music, art and architecture, typography and publishing, and friendship - and to showcase his epistolary virtuosity. Writing was J.C. Beaglehole's preferred mode of expression, and his letters, conversational and crafted in equal measure, are a unique window on the mind and character of their author: they offer, in his son's words, 'a self-portrait of a remarkably gifted, imaginative and scholarly man'. This volume is a rich and engaging companion to Tim Beaglehole's fine biography, A Life of J.C. Beaglehole, New Zealand Scholar (2006).