{{Short description|Book by Mark Twain}}{{Infobox book | alt = The illustrated cover of Mark Twain's Letters from Hawaii | author = [[Mark Twain]] | pub_date = 1966 | caption = Cover of the 1966 edition | editor = [[A. Grove Day]] | note = A collection of letters originally written in 1866. | publisher = [[D. Appleton & Company|Appleton-Century]] | name = Mark Twain's Letters from Hawaii | image = LettersFromHawaii.jpg }}
{{italic title}} '''''Letters from Hawaii''''' is a collection of 25 letters that [[Mark Twain]] wrote in 1866 from the [[Hawaiian Islands]] as a special [[correspondent]] for ''[[The Sacramento Union]]''. The letters, written early in Twain's career, were not published as a book until 1937, nearly three decades after his death. They have been collected under several titles, most recently ''Mark Twain's Letters from Hawaii''.
Twain used his experiences in the Hawaiian Islands and the letters themselves as the basis for some of his early lectures, as well as the foundation for portions of ''[[Roughing It]]'' (1872).<ref>{{Cite book |last=Day |first=A. Grove |author-link=A. Grove Day |url=http://archive.org/details/madaboutislandsn0000daya |title=Mad about Islands: Novelists of a Vanished Pacific |date=1987 |publisher=Mutual Publishing |isbn=978-0-935180-46-6 |location=Honolulu, Hawaii |page=91 |language=en |chapter=Innocent Abroad in Hawaii: Mark Twain |oclc=17445516}}</ref>
== Summary == During his four-month and a day stay in the Hawaiian Islands, then called the [[Hawaiian Islands|Sandwich Islands]], Twain visited the islands of [[Oahu]], [[Maui]], and [[Hawaii (island)|Hawaii]].
=== Oahu === Mark Twain arrives in [[Oahu]] under the reign of [[Kamehameha V]] and wrote Letters 1-17. He climbed [[Diamond Head, Hawaii|Diamond Head]], visited the newly formed Kingdom of Hawaii legislature, etc.
=== Maui === Mark Twain visited [[Haleakala]], [[Maui]], but left no letter on his itinerary of his Maui visit, except some statistics of sugar production in Maui (Letter 23).
=== Hawaii === In Letters 18 to 25, Mark Twain writes about his visits to [[Kailua Kona]], [[Kealakekua Bay]], and [[Kilauea]].
== Publication History == The letters were first collected in book form, albeit with some omissions, in 1937 by [[Grabhorn Institute|Grabhorn Press]], in a limited edition, under the title ''Letters from the Sandwich Islands''. The first [[Paperback#Trade paperback|trade edition]] was published the following year by the [[Stanford University Press]]. In 1939, Thomas Nickerson published a limited edition titled ''Letters from the Honolulu''. The first complete collection of the letters came in 1947, in an appendix to [[Walter F. Frear|Walter F. Frear's]] ''Mark Twain and Hawaii'', published by [[Lakeside Press|the Lakeside Press]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Frear |first=Walter Francis |author-link=Walter F. Frear |title=Mark Twain and Hawaii |date=1947 |publisher=[[Lakeside Press|The Lakeside Press]] |location=Chicago |pages=256-261 |language=en |oclc=1810290}}</ref>
In 1966, 100 years after their original publication, [[D. Appleton & Company|Appleton-Century]] published the complete letters as ''Mark Twain's Letters from Hawaii'', edited and with an introduction by [[A. Grove Day]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Twain |first=Mark |author-link=Mark Twain |url=http://archive.org/details/marktwainsletter0000twai_u0q3 |title=Mark Twain's Letters from Hawaii |date=1966 |publisher=[[D. Appleton & Company|Appleton-Century]] |editor-last=Day |editor-first=A. Grove |editor-link=A. Grove Day |location=New York |language=en |oclc=271356 |url-status=}}</ref>
==References== <references/>
==External links== *{{librivox book | title=Mark Twain's Letters from Hawaii | author=Mark Twain}} * [http://www.bookrags.com/studyguide-mark-twains-letters-from-hawaii/#gsc.tab=0 Mark Twain ''Letters from Hawaii'' Study Guide] * [http://www.twainquotes.com/sduindex.html The text of ''Letters from Hawaii'']
{{Mark Twain}}
[[Category:Books by Mark Twain]] [[Category:English-language non-fiction books]] [[Category:American travel books]] [[Category:Hawaiian Kingdom]] [[Category:1947 non-fiction books]] [[Category:Books about Hawaii]] [[Category:Collections of letters]] [[Category:Books published posthumously]]