There was Robert L. Stevenson and there was Australia's equivalent, Louis Becke, not forgetting New Zealand's Robert Julian Dashwood, writing under the name Julian Hillas, as well as America's Robert Dean Frisbie. They all wrote evocatively about the South Pacific and they have all been dead for a long time.
Compared to them, James A. Michener was with us until October 1997, and he wrote not just about the South Pacific, although his three books "Tales of the South Pacific", "Rascals in Paradise", and "Return to Paradise" make him a latter-day "tusitala" as good as any of the others. They are all out of print now but are in the public domain, so indulge yourself by dipping in and out of those many wonderful short stories.
Having lived and worked in the islands for many years and having left it too late to return, they make wonderful reading for armchair-travelling in my old age. There's his beautiful description of Rabaul which was the first port-of-call in my own odyssey through the islands - click here - and nothing could describe my feelings about New Guinea better than his story simply called New Guinea.
After New Guinea I moved to Honiara on Guadalcanal, and finally to the 'Cradle of Polynesia', Samoa. Only many years later, in retirement, did I have the time and money to travel to the quintessential South Pacific island, the atoll, by wandering through the countless islands in the Ha'apai group in the Kingdom of Tonga.
Anyway, it's all there, beautifully captured by this great 'tusitala' of the twentieth century. So sit back in your armchair and travel the wonderful world of the South Pacific with James A. Michener!
