edited by Jane Downing,
Dirk H.R. Spennemann

softcover, xliv, 327 pages.
Mulini Press : Canberra, 2001.
ISBN: 0 949910 86 4.
RRP: $45.00. (plus postage)

          Reviews by
          XX
          XX

Handley Bathurst Sterndale (1829-1878), son of a British indigo planter in India, roamed the Pacific in the mid-19th century. He was marooned on an uninhabited island in the Eastern Pacific, engaged in pearl fishing, and made a voyage from Manihiki (Cooks) to Samoa in an open boat with the notorious "Bully" Hayes, a large New Foundland and a very small poodle. He wrote for newspapers in Australia and New Zealand before his Pacific career ended in a violent showdown while a trader and self-appointed "King" of Suwarrow Atoll in the Cooks.

Sterndale first wrote about his adventures and life, enhanced by fictitious embellishments, in 1871 in a series of weekly instalments for the Australian Town and Country Journal. Although he seems to have destined the work for eventual publication in book form, this never eventuated. Reproduced here in its entirety, Sterndale's series takes us through his experiences, his erudition and his vast imagination. Embedded in his narrative is the first piece of Pacific fiction written from an islanders' point of view.

My Adventures and Researches in the Pacific is an intriguing addition to the literature--historical and fiction-of the Pacific of the 19th century.
 

My Researches and Adventures in the Pacific can be obtained from all good bookstores or directly from Mulini Press, P.O. Box 82, Jamieson, ACT 2614, Australia Fax 02/6251 2519 [Intnl: 61-2-6251-2519]