Topical Guide 723
Mark Dorset
Books: Real
Writers: Real
What a Piece of Work I Am, Chapter 38:
At the library, she read all the works of Robert Dean Frisbie, a Clevelander who went to the South Seas as a young man around 1920. Frisbie lived on Pukapuka and Rarotonga and wrote numerous books and articles about his adopted home, including Mr. Moonlight’s Island and The Island of Desire. She also read Miss Ulysses from Puka Puka, the book that Frisbie’s daughter Johnny wrote when she was fifteen. She read Julian Dashwood’s I Know an Island.
Wikipedia, “Julian Dashwood”:
Dashwood was born in England in 1899, the son of a vicar. During World War I he served in the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force. Following the war, a varied career saw him become a teacher in England, a farmer in Transvaal and a rubber plantation owner in Malaya. He also worked as a car salesman and shell dealer.
He relocated to the Cook Islands in 1929, where he became manager of a shop owned by A. B. Donald & Co. Initially settling in Rakahanga, he later moved to Mauke, where he married a local woman named Kopu. He began writing under the pen name Julian Hillas (his mothers’ maiden name), publishing books including I Know an Island and Today is Forever (republished as South Seas Paradise), as well as having several articles printed in Pacific Islands Monthly.
Have you missed an episode or two or several?
You can begin reading at the beginning or you can catch up by visiting the archive or consulting the index to the Topical Guide. The Substack serialization of Little Follies begins here; Herb ’n’ Lorna begins here; Reservations Recommended begins here; Where Do You Stop? begins here; What a Piece of Work I Am begins here.
You can listen to the episodes on the Personal History podcast. Begin at the beginning or scroll through the episodes to find what you’ve missed. The Substack podcast reading of Little Follies begins here; Herb ’n’ Lorna begins here; Reservations Recommended begins here; Where Do You Stop? begins here; What a Piece of Work I Am begins here.
You can listen to “My Mother Takes a Tumble” and “Do Clams Bite?” complete and uninterrupted as audiobooks through YouTube.
You can ensure that you never miss a future issue by getting a free subscription. (You can help support the work by choosing a paid subscription instead.)
At Apple Books you can download free eBooks of Little Follies, Herb ’n’ Lorna, Reservations Recommended, and Where Do You Stop?
You’ll find overviews of the entire work in An Introduction to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy (a pdf document), The Origin Story (here on substack), Between the Lines (a video, here on Substack), and at Encyclopedia.com.