The Cruise of the Snark (Kegan Paul Travellers Series)

This is Jack London's account of the fulfillment of his boyhood dream of sailing in the Pacific in the wake of Herman Melville and Robert Louis Stevenson. His first Pacific port of call was Hawaii, where his thrilling description of surfing at Waikiki popularized the sport that has now spread around the world. The voyage continued on through the Marquesas, Tahiti, Samoa, Fiji, the New Hebrides and the Solomon Islands, ending in Sydney, Australia. Although his odyssey was a troubled one, London's Polynesian adventure renewed his faith in individual effort, courage, and daring. And it is this theme, which runs through The Cruise of the Snark like a golden thread, that makes it a book of universal appeal as well as one of the finest account of Pacific sailing ever written.