Louise Flierl Mission Museum by Christel Metzner
SKU: 127327199160

Louise Flierl Mission Museum

Author: Christel Metzner
Special Features: Illustrated

Biography Young Adult Non-Fiction Art History Colonial History Religious History Museum Studies Oceania Studies

The 64-page, fully illustrated paperback Louise Flierl Mission Museum (2001) is the only English-language guide to one of Papua New Guinea’s most intriguing micro-museums. Author Christel Metzner—grand-daughter of pioneering Lutheran missionary Louise Flierl—opens the museum’s doors to reveal rare artifacts, period photographs, and hand-drawn maps that never left the Highlands. The result is a concise but lush visual biography of both a woman and a place: from Flierl’s 1890s arrival on the steamship Herzog to the indigenous art, tools, and mission presses that still fill the original Finschhafen storeroom. Collectors of Oceanic history, religious studies, or museum ephemera will appreciate how every page functions as a portable exhibition catalogue, with colour plates sharp enough for tattoo-reference, textile, or carving details.

What makes this copy especially desirable is its immaculate, unread condition—no previous-owner marks, no dog-eared corners, no sun-fading—preserving the matte illustrations at their 2001 vibrancy. Because the small print-run was intended chiefly for museum visitors, copies seldom surface outside Papua New Guinea; most were carried home in suitcases and read to pieces. Securing a crisp, tight-bound example therefore offers the dual thrill of owning a scarce piece of South-Pacific missionalia and a practical research tool for comparative-religion courses, homeschooling modules on colonial geography, or adult book-club conversations about cultural encounter.

Beyond rarity, the narrative itself is remarkably accessible to both young adults and general readers. Metzner balances genealogical detective work with big-picture context: readers learn how German Lutheran networks intersected with British colonial policy, why artefacts were labelled in three languages, and how local pottery designs adapted to biblical scenes. Side-bars on pidgin phrases, climate data, and ship logs turn a modest page-count into a multi-disciplinary springboard. Whether shelved beside your Pacific Missionary Archives, used as a visual companion to Throwim Way Leg, or gifted to a teacher planning a world-religions unit, this copy delivers museum-quality insight without the airfare to Morobe Province.

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