Hawaii

The last of Michener's Pacific tales

By William Wetherall

First posted 1 September 2006
Last updated 1 September 2006


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1959 Random House hardcover
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1966 Bantam paperback
(Movie tie-in edition)
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1973 Fawcett paperback
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A Hawaiian Reader
Edited by Day and Stroven
(if you read the fine print)

James A. Michener
Hawaii

Hardcover

New York: Random House, 1959
937 pages + charts, hardcover

Paperbacks

New York: Bantam Books, 1961
903/5 pages, paperback (N2179)

New York: Fawcett Crest, 1973
1130 pages + 9 of charts, paperback

New York: Fawcett Crest, 1966
1130 pages + 9 of charts, paperback
Film tie-in edition with photos

Tie-ins

A. Grove Day and Carl Stroven (editors)
A Hawaiian Reader

New York: Popular Library, 1961
349 pages, paperback (E110)
Introductdion by James A. Michener

Commercial fiction

It is not a coincidence that Hawaii was published in 1959, the year Hawaii became America's 50th and most southern state, and the only state surrounded by water. Michener had moved to Hawaii, a U.S. territory since 1898, in 1949, having been there while in the navy.

Statehood was a big issue at the time. A number of past bids for statehood had failed. But the movement stirring when Michener arrived quickly gathered momentum, and by the middle of the 1950s it was fairly clear that the territory stood a good chance of becoming a state by the end of the decade.

To be continued.