Newell, C. M.. Kalani of Oahu An Historical Romance of Hawaii. The Author, E-270, 1881.

Price: US$400.00 + shipping

Condition: Very Good

Description: Hardcover. 8vo. Published by The Author, Boston, MA. 1881. 415 pgs. First Edition/First Printing. Bound in red cloth boards with gilt titles present to the spine and front board and black illustrated scene present to the front board. Boards have light shelf-wear present to the extremities. No ownership marks present. Text is clean and free of marks. Binding tight and solid. Charles Martin Newell (1823-1909) US doctor, sailor and author, who began publishing non-fantastic sea-stories as by Captain Robert Barnacle, though Leaves from an Old Log: Pehe Nu-e, or The Tiger Whale of the Pacific (1877) is of some interest for its reworkings of Herman Melville's Moby-Dick (1851) ; several works under his own name were set in or around the Hawaii Archipelago, including Kalani of Oahu: An Historical Romance of Hawaii (1881) , a Fantasy whose eponymous Hero betrays the goddess Pele; she takes revenge in various ways, while either causing or riding the waves of geological disturbances – earthquakes and volcanoes – inherent to the region. Of sf interest are two tales from the Fleetwing Series of Children's SF adventures: The Isle of Palms: Adventures While Wrecking for Gold, Encounter With a Mad Whale, Battle With a Devil-Fish, and Capture of a Mermaid (1888) , which touches on Lost World territory, and whose picaresque elements are conveyed by its subtitle; and The Wreck of the Greyhound; Or, the Romantic Love of an Earl's Daughter (1889) , in which the Invention of a submersible surf-board comes in time to save the cast. [JC]

Seller: Last Exit Books, Charlottesville, VA, U.S.A.