In Search of Paradise

In this lavishly illustrated book, author Graeme Lay presents the lives of twenty-three of the finest artists and writers to have been inspired by the South Pacific, and a rich selection of their works. In Search of Paradise is a compilation of memorable visual and literary journeys, covering two hundred years of European contact with the South Pacific islands and the people who inhabited them at a unique period in the region's history. Among the art and writings included are: * The candid chronicles of Joseph Banks * Louis-Antoine de Bougainville's discovery of Tahitian free love * Herman Melville's very first fiction * Robert Louis Stevenson's life and death in Samoa * The radiant paintings of Paul Gauguin * Gottfried Lindauer's depiction of a presumed-dying Maori race * The love affair of Rupert Brooke's life * The inspiration for Somerset Maugham's best-known short story, and * The remarkable literary partnership of Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall.