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Mark Twain's Letters from Hawaii
Book by Mark Twain
316 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1866
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June 29, 2025
Letters deserve a letter in reply, and therefore --
Dear Mr. Clemens: As a longtime admirer of your work, I was delighted to find that a series of sketches that you dispatched to a California newspaper back in 1866, at the dawn of your literary career, were published by the University of Hawaii Press in 1975 under the title of Letters from Hawaii. Therefore, I hastened to pick up a copy of your Hawaiian letters, to keep me company on a summertime trip to visit family in the Hawaiian Islands. Your letters proved a delightful accompaniment to my Hawaiian travels, informing my sense of the history and culture of Hawaii, and of your growth and development as a writer.
Here in the year 2025, you remain one of the most popular and best-loved of all American writers. Biographer Mark Chernow, who had previously written lengthy biographies of important Americans like George Washington and Alexander Hamilton and Ulysses S. Grant, just published a biography of you, and it is 1200 pages long (!). The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) continues to be a particularly well-liked book for young readers. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a perennial nominee for the designation of “Great American Novel.”
Huckleberry Finn still informs the cultural conversation here in the United States, as recently became apparent when one of the greatest of current American writers, Percival Everett, published his novel James, a retelling of Huck and Jim’s story from Jim’s point of view. I think you would have appreciated that. And the fact that Huckleberry Finn is still one of the books most often banned from U.S. schools and libraries, just as it was back in 1885, is something that I can’t help feeling would give you a baleful sense of satisfaction.
I expected to enjoy Letters from Hawaii while I was in Hawaii, and I did – just as I enjoyed Life on the Mississippi while sojourning in your hometown of Hannibal, Missouri; and just as Roughing It (1873) provided the perfect complement for my visit to Virginia City, Nevada, where you edited a newspaper and began your literary career; and just as I often return to the copy of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889) that I purchased at your Hartford home that is now a museum dedicated to your life and work.
This edition of Letters from Hawaii benefits from a helpful introduction by A. Grove Day, the 20th century’s pre-eminent scholar of the history, culture, and society of Hawaii. Dr. Day carefully explains the circumstances under which, having never travelled outside the United States of America, you sailed to Hawaii as a correspondent for the Sacramento Union, then a leading California newspaper.
At a time when American interest in Hawaii was growing, and when Americans were talking more and more openly about the possibility of making the Hawaiian kingdom part of the United States, you published in the Sacramento Union your impressions of the islands and their people. Those letters immediately found a wide and appreciative audience.
Your talent for description is apparent throughout your Letters from Hawaii. I liked your description of the ancient City of Refuge on the “Big Island” of Hawaii – “a vast enclosure, whose stone walls were twenty feet thick at the base, and fifteen or twenty feet high; an oblong square, a thousand and forty feet one way, and a fraction under seven hundred the other. Within this enclosure…have been three rude temples; each was 210 feet long by one hundred wide, and thirteen high” (pp. 250-51).
You take pains to explain to your California readers how a man wanted for murder or other capital crimes could repair to the City of Refuge, and there find sanctuary in a place that was “sacred to all – even to rebels in arms and invading armies. Once within its walls, and confession made to the priest and absolution obtained, the wretch with a price on his head could go forth without fear and without danger – he was tabu, and to harm him was death” (p. 251).
Today, the site that you saw is the Puʻuhonua o Hōnaunau National Historical Park (Puʻuhonua means “place of refuge”). Visiting the site, I couldn’t help but think that it might have pleased you to see how the National Park Service has worked to preserve this site that has been sacred to Indigenous Hawaiians for many centuries.
Similarly, I appreciated the descriptive flair with which you emphasized how “the King’s Grove” in Waikiki is literally a grove: “a grove of tall coconut trees, with clean branchless stems reaching straight up sixty or seventy feet and topped with a spray of green foliage sheltering clusters of coconuts”. In this grove are “About a dozen cottages, some frame and the others of native grass, nestled sleepily in the shade here and there. The grass cabins are of a grayish color…and are made of some kind of weed strongly bound together in bundles.” These thick-walled cabins, with square holes for windows, have at a distance “a furry appearance, as if they might be made of bear skins. They are very cool and pleasant inside” (p. 52).
It all sounds lovely; but as I am writing this review from the 8th story of a 29-story glass-and-steel hotel, with several equally tall or taller buildings around it, I can tell you that Waikiki has changed a bit since 1866.
I also appreciated the opportunity to hear your impressions of the Hawaiian people – both the ordinary people of Hawaii and their political leaders. When you attended a session of the Hawaiian national legislature at their capitol in Honolulu in May of 1866, you were clearly impressed with the legislature’s president, Mataio Kekūanaōʻa , whom you described as “an erect, strongly built, massive-featured, white-haired, swarthy old gentleman” who “bears himself with a calm, stately dignity, and is a man of noble presence” (p. 108).
Similarly, when you shared with your readers the story of the ordeal of the crew of the clipper ship Hornet, who spent 43 days drifting across the Pacific Ocean in open boats after their ship burned at sea, you emphasized how, when one of their open boats came ashore on the island of Hawaii, the Indigenous Hawaiians who found that boat full of starving and desperate men gathered “around the strangers dumping bananas, melons, taro, poi – anything and everything they could scrape together that could be eaten – on the ground by the cartload” (p. 157). In the same passage, you describe the Indigenous Hawaiians as “the very incarnation of generosity, unselfishness, and hospitality” (p. 157).
While some of the language that you use in talking about the Indigenous Hawaiians might seem antiquated to the sensibilities of many readers of my time, your respect for the Indigenous Hawaiians is unmistakable.
You also attended with care to aspects of the economy of the Kingdom of Hawaii – something that did not surprise me, since, as mentioned above, growing numbers of Americans like the readers of the Sacramento Union were already casting a covetous gaze towards those beautiful islands, envisioning the opportunities that might await enterprising Americans if only Hawaii could somehow be brought under U.S. sovereignty.
Fellow admirers of the quality of Kona coffee will be pleased to hear you declare that “I think the Kona coffee has a richer flavor than any other, be it grown where it may and call it by what name you please” (p. 206). It was sad to hear that a blight, combined with high American tariffs, had hurt the profitability of Hawaiian coffee in that time; but sugar was already doing just fine, as “the sugar yield of [1865] was more than twenty times what it was in 1852” (p. 206).
You focused a lot, throughout the latter parts of Letters from Hawaii, on the islands’ suitability for sugar cultivation, as when you wrote that “This country is the king of the sugar world, as far as astonishing productiveness is concerned” (p. 257). And indeed, what we of these times might call “Big Sugar” was a major factor in Hawaiian politics for many years, from kingdom to short-lived republic to U.S. territory to U.S. state. How strange you might have found it to learn that – for a variety of reasons, including changing global trade conditions, labour activism, and the shift of the Hawaiian economy in favour of tourism – the last sugar plantation in Hawaii closed down in 2016.
I saw in Letters from Hawaii the early development of many of the hallmarks of your literary style – your brilliant sense of humour; your gift for description; your gifts for anatomizing human folly; your appreciation for the better qualities of humanity wherever you find them, particularly among the poor and downtrodden. Professor Day from the University of Hawaii suggests in his foreword that Hawaii may have done much to nourish your literary imagination, along with giving you subject matter for the first of the public-speaking engagements that were such an important part of your work.
Whatever the case may be, mainly I’m glad that you enjoyed your time in what used to be called the Sandwich Islands. Wherever you may be now (perhaps a comfortable place from which you can offer mocking evaluations of both God and the devil, as was your wont in life), I hope you get the opportunity to revisit the Hawaiian Islands from time to time. Thank you for being a reliable literary companion in Hawaii, as you have been in Missouri and Nevada and California and Connecticut. Take care and stay well.
With best regards,
Paul Haspel
Dear Mr. Clemens: As a longtime admirer of your work, I was delighted to find that a series of sketches that you dispatched to a California newspaper back in 1866, at the dawn of your literary career, were published by the University of Hawaii Press in 1975 under the title of Letters from Hawaii. Therefore, I hastened to pick up a copy of your Hawaiian letters, to keep me company on a summertime trip to visit family in the Hawaiian Islands. Your letters proved a delightful accompaniment to my Hawaiian travels, informing my sense of the history and culture of Hawaii, and of your growth and development as a writer.
Here in the year 2025, you remain one of the most popular and best-loved of all American writers. Biographer Mark Chernow, who had previously written lengthy biographies of important Americans like George Washington and Alexander Hamilton and Ulysses S. Grant, just published a biography of you, and it is 1200 pages long (!). The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) continues to be a particularly well-liked book for young readers. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a perennial nominee for the designation of “Great American Novel.”
Huckleberry Finn still informs the cultural conversation here in the United States, as recently became apparent when one of the greatest of current American writers, Percival Everett, published his novel James, a retelling of Huck and Jim’s story from Jim’s point of view. I think you would have appreciated that. And the fact that Huckleberry Finn is still one of the books most often banned from U.S. schools and libraries, just as it was back in 1885, is something that I can’t help feeling would give you a baleful sense of satisfaction.
I expected to enjoy Letters from Hawaii while I was in Hawaii, and I did – just as I enjoyed Life on the Mississippi while sojourning in your hometown of Hannibal, Missouri; and just as Roughing It (1873) provided the perfect complement for my visit to Virginia City, Nevada, where you edited a newspaper and began your literary career; and just as I often return to the copy of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889) that I purchased at your Hartford home that is now a museum dedicated to your life and work.
This edition of Letters from Hawaii benefits from a helpful introduction by A. Grove Day, the 20th century’s pre-eminent scholar of the history, culture, and society of Hawaii. Dr. Day carefully explains the circumstances under which, having never travelled outside the United States of America, you sailed to Hawaii as a correspondent for the Sacramento Union, then a leading California newspaper.
At a time when American interest in Hawaii was growing, and when Americans were talking more and more openly about the possibility of making the Hawaiian kingdom part of the United States, you published in the Sacramento Union your impressions of the islands and their people. Those letters immediately found a wide and appreciative audience.
Your talent for description is apparent throughout your Letters from Hawaii. I liked your description of the ancient City of Refuge on the “Big Island” of Hawaii – “a vast enclosure, whose stone walls were twenty feet thick at the base, and fifteen or twenty feet high; an oblong square, a thousand and forty feet one way, and a fraction under seven hundred the other. Within this enclosure…have been three rude temples; each was 210 feet long by one hundred wide, and thirteen high” (pp. 250-51).
You take pains to explain to your California readers how a man wanted for murder or other capital crimes could repair to the City of Refuge, and there find sanctuary in a place that was “sacred to all – even to rebels in arms and invading armies. Once within its walls, and confession made to the priest and absolution obtained, the wretch with a price on his head could go forth without fear and without danger – he was tabu, and to harm him was death” (p. 251).
Today, the site that you saw is the Puʻuhonua o Hōnaunau National Historical Park (Puʻuhonua means “place of refuge”). Visiting the site, I couldn’t help but think that it might have pleased you to see how the National Park Service has worked to preserve this site that has been sacred to Indigenous Hawaiians for many centuries.
Similarly, I appreciated the descriptive flair with which you emphasized how “the King’s Grove” in Waikiki is literally a grove: “a grove of tall coconut trees, with clean branchless stems reaching straight up sixty or seventy feet and topped with a spray of green foliage sheltering clusters of coconuts”. In this grove are “About a dozen cottages, some frame and the others of native grass, nestled sleepily in the shade here and there. The grass cabins are of a grayish color…and are made of some kind of weed strongly bound together in bundles.” These thick-walled cabins, with square holes for windows, have at a distance “a furry appearance, as if they might be made of bear skins. They are very cool and pleasant inside” (p. 52).
It all sounds lovely; but as I am writing this review from the 8th story of a 29-story glass-and-steel hotel, with several equally tall or taller buildings around it, I can tell you that Waikiki has changed a bit since 1866.
I also appreciated the opportunity to hear your impressions of the Hawaiian people – both the ordinary people of Hawaii and their political leaders. When you attended a session of the Hawaiian national legislature at their capitol in Honolulu in May of 1866, you were clearly impressed with the legislature’s president, Mataio Kekūanaōʻa , whom you described as “an erect, strongly built, massive-featured, white-haired, swarthy old gentleman” who “bears himself with a calm, stately dignity, and is a man of noble presence” (p. 108).
Similarly, when you shared with your readers the story of the ordeal of the crew of the clipper ship Hornet, who spent 43 days drifting across the Pacific Ocean in open boats after their ship burned at sea, you emphasized how, when one of their open boats came ashore on the island of Hawaii, the Indigenous Hawaiians who found that boat full of starving and desperate men gathered “around the strangers dumping bananas, melons, taro, poi – anything and everything they could scrape together that could be eaten – on the ground by the cartload” (p. 157). In the same passage, you describe the Indigenous Hawaiians as “the very incarnation of generosity, unselfishness, and hospitality” (p. 157).
While some of the language that you use in talking about the Indigenous Hawaiians might seem antiquated to the sensibilities of many readers of my time, your respect for the Indigenous Hawaiians is unmistakable.
You also attended with care to aspects of the economy of the Kingdom of Hawaii – something that did not surprise me, since, as mentioned above, growing numbers of Americans like the readers of the Sacramento Union were already casting a covetous gaze towards those beautiful islands, envisioning the opportunities that might await enterprising Americans if only Hawaii could somehow be brought under U.S. sovereignty.
Fellow admirers of the quality of Kona coffee will be pleased to hear you declare that “I think the Kona coffee has a richer flavor than any other, be it grown where it may and call it by what name you please” (p. 206). It was sad to hear that a blight, combined with high American tariffs, had hurt the profitability of Hawaiian coffee in that time; but sugar was already doing just fine, as “the sugar yield of [1865] was more than twenty times what it was in 1852” (p. 206).
You focused a lot, throughout the latter parts of Letters from Hawaii, on the islands’ suitability for sugar cultivation, as when you wrote that “This country is the king of the sugar world, as far as astonishing productiveness is concerned” (p. 257). And indeed, what we of these times might call “Big Sugar” was a major factor in Hawaiian politics for many years, from kingdom to short-lived republic to U.S. territory to U.S. state. How strange you might have found it to learn that – for a variety of reasons, including changing global trade conditions, labour activism, and the shift of the Hawaiian economy in favour of tourism – the last sugar plantation in Hawaii closed down in 2016.
I saw in Letters from Hawaii the early development of many of the hallmarks of your literary style – your brilliant sense of humour; your gift for description; your gifts for anatomizing human folly; your appreciation for the better qualities of humanity wherever you find them, particularly among the poor and downtrodden. Professor Day from the University of Hawaii suggests in his foreword that Hawaii may have done much to nourish your literary imagination, along with giving you subject matter for the first of the public-speaking engagements that were such an important part of your work.
Whatever the case may be, mainly I’m glad that you enjoyed your time in what used to be called the Sandwich Islands. Wherever you may be now (perhaps a comfortable place from which you can offer mocking evaluations of both God and the devil, as was your wont in life), I hope you get the opportunity to revisit the Hawaiian Islands from time to time. Thank you for being a reliable literary companion in Hawaii, as you have been in Missouri and Nevada and California and Connecticut. Take care and stay well.
With best regards,
Paul Haspel
July 5, 2019
I wouldn’t have read this book were it not for the fact I—for the first time—visited the Big Island recently. I had read one white man’s fictional reflections on another set of Pacific islands, Galapagos, while I was there, from Kurt Vonnegut, and discovered that Letters from Hawaii is a collection of 25 letters (a selection from many more) that (also white man visitor) Mark Twain wrote from Hawaii in 1866 as a special correspondent for the Sacramento Union newspaper. The letters were not published as a book until 1947, and I listened to it on audiotape.
I found Galapagos an important book, darkly satirical about the greed that was destroying this particular paradise. Twain did not intend this to be a book, he was just writing letters; he was 31, had not yet published a book, but there’s some rich doses of Twain’s signature satirical humor and great writing in this book that like Vonnegut, help us appreciate and defend natural beauty and local customs. He's—especially for the time in which he was writing—affirming of local culture.
Twain stayed four months in Hawaii, “The loveliest fleet of islands that lies anchored in any ocean.”
I had visited the largest island, Hawaii, and stayed in the Kona/Kailua area, so I was particularly interested in what he written about that 150 years ago:
“We landed at Kailua, a little collection of native grass houses reposing under tall coconut trees—the sleepiest, quietest, Sundayest looking place you can imagine.”
That same island where I stayed is still lovely, of course, with volcanoes and waterfalls and rainforests and hula dancers at luaus and surfing, much of which Twain also described in simpler times:
“. . . thickets of flowers fresh as a meadow after a rain, and glowing with the richest dyes. . . I saw huge-bodied, wide-spreading forest trees, with strange names and stranger appearance--trees that cast a shadow like a thundercloud. . ..”
And now mainly a tourist economy, with lots of fancy hotels, of course.
One great letter tells the story of the explorer Captain James Cook who initially “named” Hawaii the "Sandwich Islands" after the fourth Earl of Sandwich in the western fashion of “discovering” and claiming places already inhabited. (Makes sense, right? To claim he can even name it, and probably after some financial backer). Twain sided with the islanders over Cook, who sought to take advantage of the otherwise peace-loving Hawaiian people, who realized he was deceitful (Oh, and they actually killed the famous explorer, but you can decide for yourself what you think about that).
My favorite parts of the letters were the humorous characterizations of Christian missionaries, who had come to make the native people “permanently miserable by telling them how beautiful and how blissful a place heaven is, and how nearly impossible it is to get there. . . How sad it is to think of the multitudes who have gone to their graves in this beautiful island and never knew there was a hell.”
That’s classic Twain, right?
I found Galapagos an important book, darkly satirical about the greed that was destroying this particular paradise. Twain did not intend this to be a book, he was just writing letters; he was 31, had not yet published a book, but there’s some rich doses of Twain’s signature satirical humor and great writing in this book that like Vonnegut, help us appreciate and defend natural beauty and local customs. He's—especially for the time in which he was writing—affirming of local culture.
Twain stayed four months in Hawaii, “The loveliest fleet of islands that lies anchored in any ocean.”
I had visited the largest island, Hawaii, and stayed in the Kona/Kailua area, so I was particularly interested in what he written about that 150 years ago:
“We landed at Kailua, a little collection of native grass houses reposing under tall coconut trees—the sleepiest, quietest, Sundayest looking place you can imagine.”
That same island where I stayed is still lovely, of course, with volcanoes and waterfalls and rainforests and hula dancers at luaus and surfing, much of which Twain also described in simpler times:
“. . . thickets of flowers fresh as a meadow after a rain, and glowing with the richest dyes. . . I saw huge-bodied, wide-spreading forest trees, with strange names and stranger appearance--trees that cast a shadow like a thundercloud. . ..”
And now mainly a tourist economy, with lots of fancy hotels, of course.
One great letter tells the story of the explorer Captain James Cook who initially “named” Hawaii the "Sandwich Islands" after the fourth Earl of Sandwich in the western fashion of “discovering” and claiming places already inhabited. (Makes sense, right? To claim he can even name it, and probably after some financial backer). Twain sided with the islanders over Cook, who sought to take advantage of the otherwise peace-loving Hawaiian people, who realized he was deceitful (Oh, and they actually killed the famous explorer, but you can decide for yourself what you think about that).
My favorite parts of the letters were the humorous characterizations of Christian missionaries, who had come to make the native people “permanently miserable by telling them how beautiful and how blissful a place heaven is, and how nearly impossible it is to get there. . . How sad it is to think of the multitudes who have gone to their graves in this beautiful island and never knew there was a hell.”
That’s classic Twain, right?
September 27, 2008
It was a slow read, but worth it. My husband and I visited Hawaii in January and were surprised to find out about its disturbing history: American businessmen bought the land for pennies, took advantage of the natives, and then overthrew their legal government. Twain's book, actually a compilation of essays written for the Sacramento newspaper when he visited Hawaii as a young man, brings to life portions of this upsetting history. It is difficult to read this American literary hero encouraging businessmen to take advantage of the situation; he insults the natives regularly and paints a picture of a bigoted, arrogant imperialist. That said, there are also many sections describing both his adventures and the natural beauty with characteristic charm, humor and intelligence. A must-read for anyone interested in knowing more about Hawaii's history, but probably not worth the effort and upset otherwise.
June 1, 2024
I've been interested in Hawaii since I read The Bobbsey Twins in Volcano Land before a trip to Oahu in 2nd grade so I was eager to learn about and listen to these letters Mark Twain wrote about his time there shortly after the conclusion of the Civil War when he was still a young man. It's fascinating getting his perspective on the then-kingdom and its geography, native people, and customs. Much of this is written for the California audience with a view to promote commerce and capital investment so at times you get bogged down in the weeds of sugar production and shipping duties.
And there is no avoiding the "white man's burden" paternalism of the era towards the "noble savages" of the islands' native population and their habits of governance and daily life. It is interesting to learn that much of the imperialist, Manifest Destiny views that Twain held at this age were repudiated by him in his later years as he spoke out forcefully against American involvement abroad, specifically regarding the annexation of the Philippines. Most of the unpleasant stuff is leavened by Twain's signature wit and charm and the audiobook narrator did a fine job of capturing his innate folksy Twain-ness.
Boring sections aside this is a great travelogue and an amazing historical document of a singular American in this particular time and place. I was particularly held captive by Twain's relaying of the sinking of the clipper ship Hornet and the trials of her crew who managed to wash ashore during Twain's time on the islands.
And there is no avoiding the "white man's burden" paternalism of the era towards the "noble savages" of the islands' native population and their habits of governance and daily life. It is interesting to learn that much of the imperialist, Manifest Destiny views that Twain held at this age were repudiated by him in his later years as he spoke out forcefully against American involvement abroad, specifically regarding the annexation of the Philippines. Most of the unpleasant stuff is leavened by Twain's signature wit and charm and the audiobook narrator did a fine job of capturing his innate folksy Twain-ness.
Boring sections aside this is a great travelogue and an amazing historical document of a singular American in this particular time and place. I was particularly held captive by Twain's relaying of the sinking of the clipper ship Hornet and the trials of her crew who managed to wash ashore during Twain's time on the islands.
December 1, 2018
Twain visits Hawaii before it falls to US imperialism but after it is infested by missionaries.
November 28, 2022
As you can clearly see by how long it took me to get through this book it was a slog to read! But also, I started college during my reading of this book which left me with less time to read it.
Letters From Hawaii is a weird book because I wasn’t a huge fan of it, as aside from some pretty and well written descriptions of Hawaii’s scenery in the late 1800s and the occasional witty joke, the book read much too historically and dated for my taste. There’s a lot of boring topics in this book that just go on for pages. Like Mark Twain politically attempting to persuade America to acquire Hawaii, pages of numbers and figures of how much more money Hawaii makes on sugar and sugar imports to the America’s than any state in America, and various sailor and nautical boating terms that to anyone unfamiliar with nautical and boating terms of the 1800s could go over your head and bore you. (He at points does explain nautical terms but that’s boring too because it slows down the read further to have him explain it.)
While we’re on the topic of his writing, I’ll also mention that this is pretty much one of the first things Mark Twain wrote, he did write stuff before this but this is technically his first book, as there were enough letters on Hawaii to compose it into a book, where as anything he wrote before this was poetry (some of which is featured in here but it’s not good and Mark Twain is self aware of this and pokes fun at it.) and probably a few random short stories for fun, and practice. It’s easy to tell he’s still an early writer here, because this book is littered with run on sentences and ramblings. Seriously some sentences I was reading left me wondering when the hell the period would come to end the sentence. I’m almost positive a few sentences made for paragraphs. I’m no grammar expert so maybe his grammar was still correct but man those sentences don’t need to be that long.
Anyways aside from all the things I hated in this book oddly enough I’d still recommend it. I don’t think it’s a good book, but I am going to urge that anyone who’s an avide reader should read this. Why? Three reasons I will give you now.
1.) This book “exposes”, so to speak Mark Twain as a racist, womanizing, Christian (the kind of Christian who believes it’s okay and correct to indoctrinate others into the belief), Republican, capitalist. That’s right, a famous author whom English teachers across America praise is flawed and problematic. This book contains nothing but real writings by Mark Twain on his genuine thoughts of Hawaii, no less thoughts he published in Newspapers in America, which at the time probably only aided in giving other people the same backwards ideas. He even hoped to persuade America to overtake Hawaii. The overtaking of Hawaii by America was awful for the Hawaiians as America destroyed a lot of their culture and forced many of the native Hawaiians to work in sugar cane fields along with the Japanese, which I’m sure based on this book Twain would have supported. In this book Mark Twain is often seen calling the natives to Hawaii “savages,” often complaining they believe in pagan lies as they have their own multiple gods and culture, being annoyed with their language simply because he can’t understand it, he loves mentioning how their cannibalistic (which seems like a racist thing many love to say native tribes were or are), and claiming that the colonization and Christian indoctrination of the natives by Americans was a good thing because it made them more civilized. Just about the only good thing he does for the native Hawaiians, is accurately portray some of their history on the island, such as the volcano eruptions, captain cook arriving and being killed on the island, and some of the folklore of their gods, however 90% of the time after explaining this stuff he often then gives his racist input on it. Like explaining a lot of the stories of the Hawaiian gods correctly but following up these accurate explanations with his own opinons about how ridiculous it is the natives still believe in these gods and their illogical stories.
With all that said, while this paints Mark Twain in a negative light, he dug his own grave there, as he wrote this. Therefore any avide reader should read this to know who Mark Twain truly was because too often famous American classic novels are praised, with the authors subsequently being praised for their writing. Yet no one actually looks into these authors to find out who they are as people, because some of them aren’t good people despite their fictional writing having good morals. Like Huckleberry Finn has themes in it about how racism is wrong from what I know, yet Mark Twain the writer of that book is racist himself, and this book proves it.
2.) Historical value, like I said a lot of the history in this book about Hawaii at the time is correct and factual despite Mark Twains opinons on it being skewed. Therefore there is historical value in reading this book to learn more about Hawaii and Hawaiian natives, if you can discern Twains opinons about Hawaiians in the book, from his factual writings about their culture. Not to mention the importance of it being written by a famous author and once again serving as a source of who Mark Twains was. This book is an important part of not only Mark Twains own history, but the history of classic literary authors as a whole.
3.) I’d also recommend this book because despite all its crap I’ll give Twain an ounce of credit he was really good at writing beautiful descriptions of the natural lands of Hawaii he witnessed. I often found myself enjoying how he painted a picture of Hawaii. To give you a taste of his descriptors here is a descriptive sentence in the book I really liked. “A glittering sea of liquid.” It’s not much but he writes a lot of prose stuff like that every time he describes the nature he saw in Hawaii which is nice. Also some of his humor when not used to poke fun at the natives was mildly entertaining. For example, their is an ongoing joke near the end of the book, where if his friend Brown needed to throw up he’d just listen to Twains poetry because it was so bad it helped Brown vomit every time.
Overall this book is racist and capitalistic at worst and at best boring and includes many ramblings. If your not an avide reader or Mark Twain fan you can skip this book, and find something better to read. But to any avid readers or writers who have a love for the craft of writing, and pride themself in reading a lot of novels, YOU MUST READ THIS BOOK! The books historical significance on not only Hawaii at the time but on what it says about who Mark Twain was as a person can’t be overlooked. This is an important read, to educate yourself.
Letters From Hawaii is a weird book because I wasn’t a huge fan of it, as aside from some pretty and well written descriptions of Hawaii’s scenery in the late 1800s and the occasional witty joke, the book read much too historically and dated for my taste. There’s a lot of boring topics in this book that just go on for pages. Like Mark Twain politically attempting to persuade America to acquire Hawaii, pages of numbers and figures of how much more money Hawaii makes on sugar and sugar imports to the America’s than any state in America, and various sailor and nautical boating terms that to anyone unfamiliar with nautical and boating terms of the 1800s could go over your head and bore you. (He at points does explain nautical terms but that’s boring too because it slows down the read further to have him explain it.)
While we’re on the topic of his writing, I’ll also mention that this is pretty much one of the first things Mark Twain wrote, he did write stuff before this but this is technically his first book, as there were enough letters on Hawaii to compose it into a book, where as anything he wrote before this was poetry (some of which is featured in here but it’s not good and Mark Twain is self aware of this and pokes fun at it.) and probably a few random short stories for fun, and practice. It’s easy to tell he’s still an early writer here, because this book is littered with run on sentences and ramblings. Seriously some sentences I was reading left me wondering when the hell the period would come to end the sentence. I’m almost positive a few sentences made for paragraphs. I’m no grammar expert so maybe his grammar was still correct but man those sentences don’t need to be that long.
Anyways aside from all the things I hated in this book oddly enough I’d still recommend it. I don’t think it’s a good book, but I am going to urge that anyone who’s an avide reader should read this. Why? Three reasons I will give you now.
1.) This book “exposes”, so to speak Mark Twain as a racist, womanizing, Christian (the kind of Christian who believes it’s okay and correct to indoctrinate others into the belief), Republican, capitalist. That’s right, a famous author whom English teachers across America praise is flawed and problematic. This book contains nothing but real writings by Mark Twain on his genuine thoughts of Hawaii, no less thoughts he published in Newspapers in America, which at the time probably only aided in giving other people the same backwards ideas. He even hoped to persuade America to overtake Hawaii. The overtaking of Hawaii by America was awful for the Hawaiians as America destroyed a lot of their culture and forced many of the native Hawaiians to work in sugar cane fields along with the Japanese, which I’m sure based on this book Twain would have supported. In this book Mark Twain is often seen calling the natives to Hawaii “savages,” often complaining they believe in pagan lies as they have their own multiple gods and culture, being annoyed with their language simply because he can’t understand it, he loves mentioning how their cannibalistic (which seems like a racist thing many love to say native tribes were or are), and claiming that the colonization and Christian indoctrination of the natives by Americans was a good thing because it made them more civilized. Just about the only good thing he does for the native Hawaiians, is accurately portray some of their history on the island, such as the volcano eruptions, captain cook arriving and being killed on the island, and some of the folklore of their gods, however 90% of the time after explaining this stuff he often then gives his racist input on it. Like explaining a lot of the stories of the Hawaiian gods correctly but following up these accurate explanations with his own opinons about how ridiculous it is the natives still believe in these gods and their illogical stories.
With all that said, while this paints Mark Twain in a negative light, he dug his own grave there, as he wrote this. Therefore any avide reader should read this to know who Mark Twain truly was because too often famous American classic novels are praised, with the authors subsequently being praised for their writing. Yet no one actually looks into these authors to find out who they are as people, because some of them aren’t good people despite their fictional writing having good morals. Like Huckleberry Finn has themes in it about how racism is wrong from what I know, yet Mark Twain the writer of that book is racist himself, and this book proves it.
2.) Historical value, like I said a lot of the history in this book about Hawaii at the time is correct and factual despite Mark Twains opinons on it being skewed. Therefore there is historical value in reading this book to learn more about Hawaii and Hawaiian natives, if you can discern Twains opinons about Hawaiians in the book, from his factual writings about their culture. Not to mention the importance of it being written by a famous author and once again serving as a source of who Mark Twains was. This book is an important part of not only Mark Twains own history, but the history of classic literary authors as a whole.
3.) I’d also recommend this book because despite all its crap I’ll give Twain an ounce of credit he was really good at writing beautiful descriptions of the natural lands of Hawaii he witnessed. I often found myself enjoying how he painted a picture of Hawaii. To give you a taste of his descriptors here is a descriptive sentence in the book I really liked. “A glittering sea of liquid.” It’s not much but he writes a lot of prose stuff like that every time he describes the nature he saw in Hawaii which is nice. Also some of his humor when not used to poke fun at the natives was mildly entertaining. For example, their is an ongoing joke near the end of the book, where if his friend Brown needed to throw up he’d just listen to Twains poetry because it was so bad it helped Brown vomit every time.
Overall this book is racist and capitalistic at worst and at best boring and includes many ramblings. If your not an avide reader or Mark Twain fan you can skip this book, and find something better to read. But to any avid readers or writers who have a love for the craft of writing, and pride themself in reading a lot of novels, YOU MUST READ THIS BOOK! The books historical significance on not only Hawaii at the time but on what it says about who Mark Twain was as a person can’t be overlooked. This is an important read, to educate yourself.
August 11, 2025
This is an amazing book, with a major caveat (or trigger warning, if you prefer). Written in the mid 1800s, it contains racist and sexist attitudes that were typical at that time. Twain was not a white supremacist - in fact he is often sympathetic to the native people he meets, and respectful and deferential towards their monarchs - but that is in proportion to the degree to which they have adopted English speech and religion and behaviors. Women hardly figure in the book, but much is made of the dress (or lack thereof) of "native maidens". These sections are episodic and I chose to read them in the context of the times (and more warmly because Twain was ahead of his time in many ways). But other people might react very differently.
I was traveling in Hawaii and picked this up at Volcano National Park (one of the best gift shops on all the islands, to be honest). It was a great companion as we cruised from island to island. The 1800s were after the unification of Hawaii under a single monarch by King Kamehameha I. In the intervening 60-70 years (?), Captain Cook stumbled on the islands and opened them to English, French and finally American trade. Sugar is ascendant at this time. The book covers much of the same ground our multiple tour and excursion guides covered for us, but 175-200 years closer to when it happened.
Twain is a great writer - he can switch from comedy (plenty of it) to economic analysis of shipping and sugar trade, to politics, to personal experiences. Or maybe he doesn't as much switch as weave all of these together. Twain spent four to six months in Hawaii, and while based in Honolulu he spent time on Maui, Hawaii, and Kauai. He visits the volcanos, comments on natural vegetation, rides spavined horses, and witnesses a state funeral for the royal princess. If you love Hawaii, or you're going to visit Hawaii, or if you love Mark Twain, you'll get a lot out of this book.
I dropped the star for this lack of a modern introduction with modern context for the problematic sections in this edition, and because it ends rather precipitously. Some of the economic sections can drag on (though they are worth reading, as Twain was either influential or fairly prescient in his predictions).
I was traveling in Hawaii and picked this up at Volcano National Park (one of the best gift shops on all the islands, to be honest). It was a great companion as we cruised from island to island. The 1800s were after the unification of Hawaii under a single monarch by King Kamehameha I. In the intervening 60-70 years (?), Captain Cook stumbled on the islands and opened them to English, French and finally American trade. Sugar is ascendant at this time. The book covers much of the same ground our multiple tour and excursion guides covered for us, but 175-200 years closer to when it happened.
Twain is a great writer - he can switch from comedy (plenty of it) to economic analysis of shipping and sugar trade, to politics, to personal experiences. Or maybe he doesn't as much switch as weave all of these together. Twain spent four to six months in Hawaii, and while based in Honolulu he spent time on Maui, Hawaii, and Kauai. He visits the volcanos, comments on natural vegetation, rides spavined horses, and witnesses a state funeral for the royal princess. If you love Hawaii, or you're going to visit Hawaii, or if you love Mark Twain, you'll get a lot out of this book.
I dropped the star for this lack of a modern introduction with modern context for the problematic sections in this edition, and because it ends rather precipitously. Some of the economic sections can drag on (though they are worth reading, as Twain was either influential or fairly prescient in his predictions).
April 22, 2020
I'm a fan of the writings of Mark Twain and have enjoyed reading several of his works. His style is generally folksy and everyday people in its approach. I particularly enjoyed reading Innocents Abroad where he chronicles his participation in a charter cruise from our east coast to the Holylands with stops along the way that we had also traveled to. I found that his experiences and observations from 150 years before our trip had many similarities and thigs that haven't changed much in that amount of time. I hoped for a similar experience with Letters From Hawaii by Mark Twain, since we have also been to Hawaii many times. I did still like the writing style and sometimes subtle humor and liked the approach that it was representing his letters back to the states about his sea voyage over and then his usual observations and interpretations of what he saw. But this one was not as interesting as some of his other works for me. Like all of his books, it has its moments throughout and certainly brought smiles to my face as I pictured what he was describing. I am rounding up from 3.5 that I actually would rate if it was possible. But if you like Mark Twain and you like Hawaii, go for it; you won't regret it!
April 17, 2017
Die Reiseberichte aus Hawaii waren Twains großer Durchbruch und sind in diesem Werk (erstmals?) so zusammengetragen worden. Wer ein Interesse an dem Autor und einer subjektiven Rückschau auf ein Hawaii des Jahres 1866 werfen möchte, mit all seinen politischen, wirtschaftlichen und gesellschaftlichen Eigenheiten, dem kann ich "Post aus Hawaii" empfehlen. Ich hatte bisher keine große Erfahrung mit Reiseberichten, aber Twain hat einen sehr angenehmen, teilweise essayistischen Stil, den man sicher kritisch hinterfragen muss, aber durchaus interessant war.
Zwischendurch gab es einige Längen und ich weiß nicht, ob ich diese Art von Literatur bzw. Tradition jetzt allzu oft lesen möchte, aber es war eine gute Abwechslung und als an Geschichte interessierter Mensch ein lehrreicher Abstecher.
Zwischendurch gab es einige Längen und ich weiß nicht, ob ich diese Art von Literatur bzw. Tradition jetzt allzu oft lesen möchte, aber es war eine gute Abwechslung und als an Geschichte interessierter Mensch ein lehrreicher Abstecher.
February 1, 2024
So I haven't read Mark Twain in a very long time and I don't recall if I've ever read anything by him in his own voice, ie., not a fictional story. This book has me laughing out loud at parts, it was so funny. Other parts were dry and boring (he was writing these letters as a reporter, so he had to report on some things, such as the sugar crop, the whaling industry, etc.).
One cool thing is he got to break the story of sailors who had been marooned at sea for 40 days. He was the first to interview them and get their story in their own words. That was fascinating.
If you have any interest in the Hawaiian islands, this gives a very intriguing view of that region from the eyes of a gifted writer. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
One cool thing is he got to break the story of sailors who had been marooned at sea for 40 days. He was the first to interview them and get their story in their own words. That was fascinating.
If you have any interest in the Hawaiian islands, this gives a very intriguing view of that region from the eyes of a gifted writer. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
February 16, 2018
As much as I love Mark Twain, and as much as I love Hawaii, this still only turned out to be a three-star book, I think because it was made up of letters instead of being an actual book. He was funny, but only in isolated spots, not constantly like in Innocents Abroad. There was entirely too much serious in this book for me. Nevertheless, his irritating travel companion Brown, whether real or imaginary, was pretty funny, and his description of the volcano... well, if it doesn't make you want to go there and see it for yourself, there's something wrong with you.
September 12, 2024
I read this too close to The Log from the Sea of Cortez.
July 14, 2015
I almost feel like a traitor with this one: Twain is my favorite writer (and I think the greatest of American writers), but the jumbled, episodic nature of this work—something I so often love in Twain—didn't set well with me. I had read some of these letters before, but never in a collection, and they way they jumped from wry anecdote to ledger-detail commercial appraisals of Hawaiian business opportunities for the US marred any continuity.
And there's a bit too much of "the savages are restless" language too. Twain wrote these when he was still in his twenties, still making a name for himself, and his broad views on racial justice—which he expressed eloquently in many other later pieces—aren't to be found here.
Sam, I love your stuff. And some of your descriptions of Hawaiian vistas and charms are manna indeed. But this one didn't win me. (And why didn't you put your account of your Hawaiian "surf bathing" in here, that I'd read elsewhere? Everyone wants to know of your wave-riding thrills!) Yet, there are still many Twain plums in here that are sweet.
And there's a bit too much of "the savages are restless" language too. Twain wrote these when he was still in his twenties, still making a name for himself, and his broad views on racial justice—which he expressed eloquently in many other later pieces—aren't to be found here.
Sam, I love your stuff. And some of your descriptions of Hawaiian vistas and charms are manna indeed. But this one didn't win me. (And why didn't you put your account of your Hawaiian "surf bathing" in here, that I'd read elsewhere? Everyone wants to know of your wave-riding thrills!) Yet, there are still many Twain plums in here that are sweet.
June 14, 2022
These were a 3.5 really in terms of reading -- but the feeling of stepping into one person's very particular experiences from 150 years ago kicks it up to the 4 stars. And to be fair, there is one story of a shipwreck and its survivors that was a full 5 stars of interest for me.
It was also fascinating to see the two sides of Twain competing with each other -- the low key colonialist and the racist concepts of his era, warring with what is clearly his naturally humanistic side. He often points toward the essential humanity of others even as he operates within his own cultural contructs. This is particularly true when he is talking about Captain Cook -- where he lays the blame of Cook's killing squarely on Cook's reprehensible behavior. Interestingly, he was far more shocked by his witnessing women doing the Hula than he was by Cook being killed by the Hawaiian people.
It was also fascinating to see the two sides of Twain competing with each other -- the low key colonialist and the racist concepts of his era, warring with what is clearly his naturally humanistic side. He often points toward the essential humanity of others even as he operates within his own cultural contructs. This is particularly true when he is talking about Captain Cook -- where he lays the blame of Cook's killing squarely on Cook's reprehensible behavior. Interestingly, he was far more shocked by his witnessing women doing the Hula than he was by Cook being killed by the Hawaiian people.
November 19, 2015
I read these letters while visiting Hawaii and found them both funny and informative since I was in many of the places Twain described and could recognize them from his lyrical descriptions, particularly the lava fields and the lush valleys, plus he recounted much of the history I had just heard. He was there in 1866, 7 years after the eruption of Mauna Loa in 1859, writes of Captain Cook, Kamehameha I, mentions two of Kamehameha's wives and his son, the missionaries who came after, and goes on to describe the sugar cane operations and the fertile growth of oranges, papaya, etc., some of which can still be seen. It was amazing to see how much was different and how much was the same after nearly 150 years.
May 13, 2016
Selle raamatu lugemine oli minu jaoks veidi keeruline, kuna see inglise keel, milles raamat kirjutatud oli, oli minu jaoks võõras ja raske. Oli peatükke, millest sõna otseses mõttes pidin läbi närima :D Aga muidu oli tore raamat ja tõi ka veidi äratundmisrõõmu :) Kuigi olegem ausad, pooleteist sajandiga on Havai saared ikka meeletult muutunud. Aga loodus on sama, vulkaanid on alles ja päike ja soe samuti :)
April 23, 2025
An epidemic of putrid, barely literate, mostly white women plague the review section for this book - filter out terms "racist, imperialist, republican, colonialist" if you dare desire to read any opinions before reading this collection of letters for yourself. It is as thoroughly Mark Twain as any of his great works you may have read so far.
May 13, 2014
I picked this collection up while in Hawai'i after reading Jack London's short stories of the islands written a few decades after Twain's visit. As always, a longer review of this book can be found at www.cloquetriverpress.com.
Mark
Mark
July 2, 2017
The more I learn about Twain, the more I realize how much he's like my grandfather. Cool learning about Twain and Hawaii. Got seriously dark quite often, but it was a vacation at other moments too.
August 2, 2018
"It was a pleasant, breezy afternoon, and the strange new "sense of entire and perfect emancipation from labor and responsibility coming, strong upon me, I went up on the hurricane deck so that I could have room to enjoy it. I sat down on a bench, and for an hour I took a tranquil delight in that kind of labor which is such a luxury to the enlightened Christian -- to wit, the labor of other people." (5)
"Your favorite California similes were bred from the technicalities of surface mining; those of Washoe come from the profound depths of the 'main lead,' and those of the Honoluluian were born of whalebone, blubber, and the traffic of the seas." (85)
"I went to Maui to stay a week and remained five. I had a jolly time. I would not have fooled away any of it writing letters under any consideration whatever." (113)
"There was a temple devoted to prayers for rain -- and with rare sagacity it was placed at a point so well up on the mountain side that if you prayed there twenty-four times a day for rain you would be likely to get it every time." (239)
"We passed in behind the cascade and the pyramid, and found the bluff pierced by several cavernous tunnels, whose crooked courses we followed about fifty feet, but with no notable result, save that we made a discovery that may be of high interest to men of science. We discovered that the darkness in there was singularly like the darkness observable in other places -- exactly like it, I thought. I am borne out in this opinion by my comrade, who said he did not believe there was any difference, but if there was, he judged it was in favor of the darkness here." (255)
"Your favorite California similes were bred from the technicalities of surface mining; those of Washoe come from the profound depths of the 'main lead,' and those of the Honoluluian were born of whalebone, blubber, and the traffic of the seas." (85)
"I went to Maui to stay a week and remained five. I had a jolly time. I would not have fooled away any of it writing letters under any consideration whatever." (113)
"There was a temple devoted to prayers for rain -- and with rare sagacity it was placed at a point so well up on the mountain side that if you prayed there twenty-four times a day for rain you would be likely to get it every time." (239)
"We passed in behind the cascade and the pyramid, and found the bluff pierced by several cavernous tunnels, whose crooked courses we followed about fifty feet, but with no notable result, save that we made a discovery that may be of high interest to men of science. We discovered that the darkness in there was singularly like the darkness observable in other places -- exactly like it, I thought. I am borne out in this opinion by my comrade, who said he did not believe there was any difference, but if there was, he judged it was in favor of the darkness here." (255)
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December 9, 2017Well, I finished it. These are literally Mark Twain's letters back to his editor which is both the pro and con of this book. Because on the one hand, you do get a look at a traveler who's visiting this distant island that's relatively new and commenting on what he sees and does. On the other hand, because they're letters there is no drive, plot, or pull in this book. You could read the first and last page only and you wouldn't know you'd missed anything because everything is very disjointed. And as Twain does, there's a lot of tangents in these letters.
There are some interesting insights and good humor but for the most part, the book covers things like export and import to and from Hawaii and San Francisco. There are charts on the price and taxation of sugar and passioned pleas for capitalism and using cheap labor from China. Serious tangents on the 'uncivilized native Kanaka's' and their strange ways. The problem is, I wanted to know about life in Hawaii, know more about what it was before it was a state. I suppose that's harsh because it is from his perspective but it's lacking from my point of view.
If you like knowing the tariff's on whaling vessels and the sugar production per acre compared to Louisana's sugar production, by all means, read the letters. If not, read and skim through parts of it.
There are some interesting insights and good humor but for the most part, the book covers things like export and import to and from Hawaii and San Francisco. There are charts on the price and taxation of sugar and passioned pleas for capitalism and using cheap labor from China. Serious tangents on the 'uncivilized native Kanaka's' and their strange ways. The problem is, I wanted to know about life in Hawaii, know more about what it was before it was a state. I suppose that's harsh because it is from his perspective but it's lacking from my point of view.
If you like knowing the tariff's on whaling vessels and the sugar production per acre compared to Louisana's sugar production, by all means, read the letters. If not, read and skim through parts of it.
April 9, 2020
Classic Mark Twain humor and criticism is found throughout 25 letters written by him during a four month stay in Oahu, Maui and the Big Island in 1866. The letters were shipped to San Francisco and published in the newspaper and would become the source of the majority Mark Twain’s income later in his life as he would travel and introduce people to Hawaii.
The letters cover the roles of the missionaries and impact upon the Hawaiian Culture, the whaling and sugar cane industries, the exploration of Hawaii by Captain Cook, and the situation of the burning of the clipper ship Hornet and survival of the crew for 44 days in small open boats until they landed on the Big Island. What makes this book so fascinating, and deserving of its 4 star rating, is its travelogue language of what the Islands of Hawaii looked like, smelled like, tasted like and felt like in 1866! Twain exquisitely allows the reader to truly experience traveling in Oahu from Waikiki to Diamond Head via horse, visit and sense the power and majesty of the Kilauea Volcano, and understand the peacefulness of the Sacred Place of Refuge all through the use of carefully chosen descriptive language.
This is a perfect primer if you ever want to begin to understand the magic of Hawaii and also help in the planning of a future vacation. This is a good introduction prior to reading more dense, yet equally informative novels about Hawaii such as Mitchener’s seminal tome on the islands.
I can sum up the book in the following quote: I went to Maui to spend a week and remained five. I had a jolly time.i would not have fooled away any of it writing letters under any consideration whatsoever.
The letters cover the roles of the missionaries and impact upon the Hawaiian Culture, the whaling and sugar cane industries, the exploration of Hawaii by Captain Cook, and the situation of the burning of the clipper ship Hornet and survival of the crew for 44 days in small open boats until they landed on the Big Island. What makes this book so fascinating, and deserving of its 4 star rating, is its travelogue language of what the Islands of Hawaii looked like, smelled like, tasted like and felt like in 1866! Twain exquisitely allows the reader to truly experience traveling in Oahu from Waikiki to Diamond Head via horse, visit and sense the power and majesty of the Kilauea Volcano, and understand the peacefulness of the Sacred Place of Refuge all through the use of carefully chosen descriptive language.
This is a perfect primer if you ever want to begin to understand the magic of Hawaii and also help in the planning of a future vacation. This is a good introduction prior to reading more dense, yet equally informative novels about Hawaii such as Mitchener’s seminal tome on the islands.
I can sum up the book in the following quote: I went to Maui to spend a week and remained five. I had a jolly time.i would not have fooled away any of it writing letters under any consideration whatsoever.
March 6, 2025
I don't like giving this two stars, but it was a chore to finish. The book includes 25 letters Twain wrote, dated between March and June 1866.
Of course, there is understatement, drollery, and snark, e.g. "that wretchedest of all wretched musical abortions, the tom-tom...
Some subjects are dated. I got my fill of whaling when I read Moby Dick; I didn't find Twain's whaling letters engaging. His attitude toward Hawaiian natives and Chinese workers is often cringe-worthy, and a few times complimentary.
Letter 15, a report of the burning of the clipper ship Hornet written from first-hand reports of the mariners who washed up to shore after weeks on the sea in lifeboats, had me eagerly turning pages.
I ♥ learning a new word! Speaking of the Hawaiian monarchy, Twain wrote, "But this subject is tanglesome."
Robin Field was the perfect narrator for this book. It really felt like Twain was speaking.
Of course, there is understatement, drollery, and snark, e.g. "that wretchedest of all wretched musical abortions, the tom-tom...
Some subjects are dated. I got my fill of whaling when I read Moby Dick; I didn't find Twain's whaling letters engaging. His attitude toward Hawaiian natives and Chinese workers is often cringe-worthy, and a few times complimentary.
Letter 15, a report of the burning of the clipper ship Hornet written from first-hand reports of the mariners who washed up to shore after weeks on the sea in lifeboats, had me eagerly turning pages.
I ♥ learning a new word! Speaking of the Hawaiian monarchy, Twain wrote, "But this subject is tanglesome."
Robin Field was the perfect narrator for this book. It really felt like Twain was speaking.
August 22, 2017
Sentimental 5 stars for a book about home. The predictable 19th century racism towards "savages" aside, this book was filled with admiration for the islands and its people. At times it was confusing whether Twain thought that it was sinful (in a bad way) for the Hawaiians to return to their practices like hula, or whether he was being tongue in cheek. He did remark of the sulfur smells from the Kilauea volcano: "The smell of sulfur is strong, but not unpleasant...to a sinner." There were other hints of satirical skepticism towards piety. Letters From Hawaii was written 20 years before Huck Finn, where Huck decides he'll go to hell instead of sell out his friend, Jim. Maybe Twain became a full heretic in the intervening time.
July 10, 2023
As someone with family in the Hawaiian Islands, it seemed essential that I read Mark Twain's Letters from Hawaii, which I had read was an outstanding overview of the islands by Mr. Twain when he was reporting on his travels in the 1800s. I did find his descriptions of some points of interest (Kealekeua Bay, Honaunau) to be a good read, and enjoyed some of his perspective on the history of these areas, but in total I found this book to be a bit tedious to read and his colonial views on the betterment of Hawaii on account of its subjugation by the United States (although it was not yet a state) to be a bit hard to stomach.
April 11, 2019
Last year this time I was in Hawai’i with my partner, reading this aloud to him never even imagining he would be dead before the following year. I enjoyed this book, then and now. Some things never get completed and it took awhile to finish this book, but it is done now.
There is no other writer like Mark Twain. His description of Hawai’i is spot on! And he captures the essence of the people who live there delightfully. In the more than hundred years since he typed out his manuscript, some of his recounts have not changed significantly.
There is no other writer like Mark Twain. His description of Hawai’i is spot on! And he captures the essence of the people who live there delightfully. In the more than hundred years since he typed out his manuscript, some of his recounts have not changed significantly.
May 20, 2022
The wonderful, amazing descriptions of Mark Twain about a group of islands that had not become a state of the United States when he wrote these letters. His words and descriptions of volcanoes and the people and the battles and history of the Hawaiian islands are amazing. You even have some conversations between him and the people who interrupted his writings written down to bring life and color to his experience.
There were two or three chapters that contained mostly numbers and statistics for shipments and what Hawaii could provide for America. Those chapters were kind of boring.
There were two or three chapters that contained mostly numbers and statistics for shipments and what Hawaii could provide for America. Those chapters were kind of boring.
July 6, 2022
I decided to read this during a recent trip to Hawaii. It was interesting to get some sense of what the Hawaii of 1866 was like, but Twain's racism, ethnocentrism, and imperialism were pretty gross. Was he more that way, or less that way, than others of his time? Who knows. No matter what, I didn't enjoy reading his mocking descriptions of the "natives." It was enlightening to get a sense of how (most) people thought about other races and cultures during that time. We have a long way to go, but compared to American imperialists from 1866, we have come a very long way too.
January 16, 2023
This is a mixed set and yet I'd still recommend it (you can skip over the letters you're not into). Overall, really interesting to get a 19th century take on Hawaii. The part about visiting Kilauea is not until the very end and it is great. I also found the account of the funeral of Princess Victoria Kamamalu Kaahumanu to be absolutely fascinating and the wreck of the Hornet was a page-turner. The sections on the whaling trade and he politics were the hardest, although the one chapter on how George Paulet made himself king is good.
September 2, 2019
Riddled as this book is with exaggerations, opinions, and the casual superiority and racism of the day, its value is mostly context--it provides a window into how Westerners viewed Hawaii over time, as well as a look at what travel writing looked liked in the 1860s. This book might be good in a college course on media literacy. Its tertiary value: it's a clear and obvious precedent for the self-deprecating wit and humor of guys like Dave Barry.
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