learned of Derek's existence, but her father was never told. In 1929 Hyde published her first book of poetry, The Desolate Star. Between 1935 and 1938 she published five novels: Passport to Hell (1936), Check To Your King (1936), Wednesday's Children (1937), Nor the Years Condemn (1938), and The Godwits Fly (1938). A manuscript of her unpublished autobiography was given to Auckland Libraries by Dr Gilbert Tothill. Final years and death In early 1938 she left New Zealand and travelled to Hong Kong, arriving in early February. At the time, much of eastern China was under Japanese occupation, after the 1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria. Hyde was meant to travel to Kobe then Vladivostok to take the trans-Siberian railway to Europe. When the connection was delayed she made her way to Japanese-occupied Shanghai, where she met fellow New Zealander Rewi Alley. Various peregrinations through China followed, including Canton and Hankow, the latter of which was the centre of Chinese resistance to Japanese occupation. She moved north to visit the battlefront and was in Hsuchow when Japanese forces took the city on 19 May. Hyde attempted to flee the area by walking along the railway lines and was eventually escorted by Japanese officials to the port city of Tsing Tao where she was handed over to British authorities. Shortly after she resumed her journey to England via sea, arriving in Southampton on 18 September 1938. She died by her own hand with an overdose of Benzedrine at 1 Pembridge Square, Kensington, a boarding house where she had been living. She was survived by a son, Derek Challis, and was buried in the Kensington New Cemetery, at Gunnersbury. References External links Profile from The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature at the New Zealand Book Council New Zealand Electronic Poetry Centre: Online works and articles Iris Wilkinson (Robin Hyde) Online works in NZ Electronic Text Centre Poems in Kowhai Gold (1930) Te Ara: 1966 article from An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand Robin Hyde in China at the NZEPC, Auckland University Real Gold, Treasures of Auckland City Libraries - Robin Hyde 1906 births 1939 deaths 1939 suicides 20th-century New Zealand novelists 20th-century New Zealand poets 20th-century New Zealand journalists 20th-century New Zealand women writers New Zealand women poets New Zealand women novelists New Zealand people of English descent South African emigrants to New Zealand People educated at Wellington Girls' College Victoria University of