The South Indian Ocean and the South Atlantic Ocean. For most sailors and nonsailors,
these two place names conjure nothing more than spots that can be pointed to on a globe. But
one mention of the South Pacific, and even a farmer in Nebraska who’s spent his entire life in the
American Midwest will conjure a ready knowledge of white-sand beaches, topless native women
and cannibals. The farmer might even mention the Southern Cross, Tahiti and tattoos, or Polynesia,
grass skirts and whale-bone carvings.
South Pacifi c lore was born over a century ago, about the time
that men began leaving ports by choice to sail very small boats
across oceans. Upon returning, a few of them, with thick fi ngers
calloused by salt and rope, began writing. For hundreds of pages,
they shined a soft and enticing light on the most remote and in-
accessible landscape on Earth. They wrote of being carried along
by warm trade winds and of landing in exotic, tropical places.
Their works inspired other writers (as well as artists and
philosophers) to follow in their wakes — and more was written.
Ultimately, a collection of writers and their stories offered
Western culture the fi rst romantic notions that still draw
cruising sailors to the South Pacifi c today.
Some of these writers you are likely familiar with; others I
hope to introduce you to. Most interesting to me
are the connections that existed between several of
them. May learning about these authors fuel your
own desire to set sail for the island places they loved
and described.
HERMAN MELVILLE
( 181 9- 1891 ), United States
Herman Melville worked as a school teacher outside
Lenox, Massachusetts, when he took a crew position
on a merchant ship at age 20. He briefl y returned
to teaching, but then, perhaps inspired by Richard
Henry Dana Jr.’s Two Years Before the Mast, Melville
signed on to work aboard the 104-foot three-masted
whaling ship Acushnet, sailing out of Connecticut. Af-
ter rounding Cape Horn, and more than a year after
leaving the United States, Melville jumped ship on
the island of Nuku Hiva, in the Marquesas, initially
hiding in the mountains to avoid capture by his ship-
mates. After weeks ashore, Melville boarded Lucy
Ann, took part in a failed mutiny and was jailed in
Tahiti. He escaped after a couple of months and lived
on nearby Moorea before signing on to the whaler
Charles & Henry for a six-month voyage to Hawaii.
There he joined the Navy and served aboard the frig-
ate USS United States, which set sail for Boston. Ten
days after the ship arrived in October 1844, Melville
was discharged and began writing.
His fi rst, and best-selling work in his lifetime, was
Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life (1846). Typee is a roman-
ticized, exaggerated account of Melville’s time spent
living among the Polynesians in the Marquesas. His-
torians have suggested that authors Jack London and
Robert Louis Stevenson were informed and inspired
by Typee.
Melville followed up with a sequel and wrote
additional books and stories, including Moby-Dick,
a commercial failure that put his writing career in
the dumps. Following the publication of Moby-Dick,
Melville began working as a customs inspector in New York,
writing poetry in his spare time. One of his sons committed
suicide, a second died, and Melville eventually succumbed to
heart disease in 1891.PIERRE LOTI
( 1850 - 192 3), France
In 1872, 22-year-old Pierre Loti lived in Papeete, Tahiti, for a
two-month period that he characterized as “the dream of my
childhood.” While there, he immersed himself in Tahitian cul-
ture: learning the language, living among the people and loving
many women. In 1880, he found a publisher for his
autobiographical work of fi ction, The Marriage of Loti.
At the center of the story is Loti’s romantic liaison
with an exotic Tahitian girl.
The Marriage of Loti was a huge success (even
turned into an opera called Lakmé) and infl uenced
Paul Gauguin to travel to the South Pacifi c, where he
lived and painted extensively before his death in the
Marquesas. Contemporary literary critic Sir Edmund
William Gosse said, “At his best, Pierre Loti was un-
questionably the fi nest descriptive writer of the day. ”ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
( 1850 - 18 94), Scotland
One day in the early 1880s, in rainy Scotland, his head
fi lled with adventurous tales of other writers, Robert
Louis Stevenson and his stepson passed the time
drawing an elaborate map of an imaginary island.
Soon afterward, he conceived the plot of Treasure
Island, published in 1883.
Though it’s widely acknowledged that Stevenson
was consciously infl uenced by similar works by other
writers, it’s from Treasure Island that our culture can
attribute references such as treasure maps with an X
marking the spot, and the seaman with a missing leg
and a parrot on his shoulder.
In June 1888, in search of a climate that would be
more conducive to his failing health, Stevenson char-
tered the 90-foot schooner Casco and set sail with
his family from San Francisco to Hawaii. From there,
they continued to the South Pacifi c, where he bought
400 acres in Samoa.
He became very active in local politics as a
defender of the Samoans against colonial administra-
tors. He took the name Tusitala, Samoan for “teller
of tales.” In December 1894, at age 44, Stevenson
looked up at his wife and asked, “Does my face look
strange?” before dying of what is thought to have
been a cerebral hemorrhage.Herman MelvillePierre LotiRobert Louis StevensonFROM TOP: COURTESY LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; BENQUE & CIE; LLOYD OSBOURNE; CASSELL