Fiji and its Possibilities – Beatrice Grimshaw - First Edition 1907

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Fiji and its Possibilities – Beatrice Grimshaw – First Edition 1907

Short Description

A first edition published by Doubleday, New York 1907. Published at the same time in London under the title “from Fiji to the Cannibal islands”.

Large tick octavo, 315 pages, original green cloth covered binding, top edge clean gilt. Embossed image of native to front board. A very good, very clean tight copy. Carries the bookplate of Maine educationalist Walter Francis Kimball to the front past down. Despite the title more than Fiji with rather graphic writing from the New Hebrides (Vanuatu) and an unusual ending in the Norfolk Islands

Beatrice Grimshaw (1870 – 1953) was an Irish born travel writer who spent most of her working life in the Western Pacific. In 1904, she was engaged by the London Daily Graphic to report on the Pacific Islands and she did so sailing around in her own cutter. She was commissioned to write for the Cook Islands, Fiji, Niue, Samoa and Tonga. This book on Fiji was one of her earlier works. In 1907, she went to Papua and remained there for most of the next 27 years becoming a close friend of Sir Hubert Murray.

Nicely illustrated with over 80 photographic images including a frontispiece of the author. Contents cover … history of Fiji; the days of Thakombau; Fijian language; native food and “how to drink yanggona”; hospitality and introduction to mbill-mbill; Fijian fun and a night on the Wainikoro; Ndreketi and the Fijian smart society; the last of the cannibals; the vanilla planters; history of the New Hebrides; dynamite fishing; coffee and a plan to eat a Planter; Malekula an uncanny place; the marriage market; a stronghold of savagery; ten stick island; Malekula the outer and inner man; slaughtered traders; the idol dance; interview with the cannibal chief; poisoned arrows; hot times in Tanna; a Council of War; returned labour trouble; up the Volcano and the Valley of Fire; Norfolk Island and the fate of the Mutineers.

Very good copy of key Fiji book - 1907

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