New Books
p. 99 · Read in the full issue
About The
South Seas
Pacific Publications Pty. Ltd. in September will publish two new books of general-reader in terest. They should be available in Islands bookshops by the end of that month.
One of the books is Queen Emma, by R. W. Robson, the result of years of research in W.
Samoa, New Guinea, Australia, the US and Europe. It tells the true story of how Emma Eliza Coe, born in Samoa in 1859 of an American father and a Samoan mother, engaged in love and politics there before sailing away to then unknown New Guinea to go trading with her Australian lover, Tom Farrell.
From headquarters in New Britain from the 1870’s, Emma built a plantation and trading empire that she sold to German interests some years before the outbreak of World War I for a sum that today would put her
in the millionaire class. She and her German husband died in Monte Carlo, within hours of each other, in 1913.
This is not only the story of a remarkable woman but the history of the era of Colonial expansion in the South Seas. The Australian price of the book will be 30/-.
To be published at the same time is PlM’s Pacific —a col lection of stories that appeared in the Pacific Islands Monthly between 1950 and 1965. An effort has been made to choose stories for their lasting interest or enter tainment value.
The writers who have con tributed to the book have one thing in common—they know the Pacific; but otherwise they come from all walks of life— from public servants to pub keepers and from crocodile shooters to sea captains.
Each of the stories is intro duced by some biographical notes on its author; and, where it is necessary, there is something about the background of the story. PlM’s Pacific will sell for 27/6 in Australia.