[Hawaii] The Mid-Pacific Magazine Volume I, Numbers 1-6, January to June 1911 inclusive, including the first issue "Surfing and Coasting Number" with Duke Kahanamoku cover story

The very first volume, complete with 6 monthly issues dated January to June 1911. Each in original colour illustrated wraps bound inside the publisher's ornately gilt-illustrated green cloth 18x26cm. Printed by the Hawaiian Gazette. pp1-696; pp101-164 "Encyclopedia and Guide to Hawaii and the Pacific", with b/w photos and maps throughout. Provenance: ex-Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association Experiment Station Library copy with minimal markings including spine label and ink stamp to front pastedown dated 9/13/44. Covers otherwise good, gilt bright, worn to the extremities with tear to spine edge. Interiors good, damp stained to lower edges throughout. Alexander Hume Ford launched this as the official organ of the "Hands-Around-the-Pacific Club" (renamed Pan-Pacific Union in 1912) which he co-founded with Jack London to promote regional interests. They hosted gatherings for leading figures at the Outrigger Canoe Club in Hawaii, which Ford had founded in 1908 to revive and preserve surfing on boards and in outrigger canoes. Ford wrote more than at first appears, confessing to London that he used assumed names whilst begging, stealing or borrowing the rest. He encouraged his local business backers to submit factual content for the Encyclopedia and Guide instead of offering them display ads. The content is very rich on Hawaiian and wider Pacific culture, history, and geography, with additional regular features on Pacific personalities (profiling Club members and others), poetry and literature. The very first issue fittingly showcases surfing. ISSUE 1 ("Surfing and Coasting Number") has Duke Kahanamoku surfing on the front, with his opening article on "Riding the Surf" with photos by AR Gurrey and GH Ferris. Other content includes Ford's opening Announcement about the magazine, and articles on skiing in Australia, Napali (Kauai), Wanganui River (NZ), Around the world from Wellington on $5 a day, Oriental Honolulu, Popocatapetl, immigrants into Hawaii, Americanization of Hawaii, Around the Pacific, Hawaiian Trail & Mountain Club, folk tales and poetry. // ISSUE 2 concludes Duke's article "Riding the Surfboard" with photos by Ferris. Other articles include hiking in Oahu, New Zealand, Australia, National Parks, local industry and agriculture on Hawaii, Ainahau park on Hawaii, Hawaii's tree-dwelling Lanai, disappearance of native dance, Hawaiian Floral Carnival, Around the Pacific. // ISSUE 3 ("National Park Number") leads on the Proposed Hawaiian National Volcano Park by Lorrin Thurston of the Trail & Mountain Club pp302-332. Other articles include local uses for discarded repurposing US oil cans, Hawaiian Ocean Park, Japanese Home Life in Honolulu, New Zealand's Mountain Park, Alaska, Australia's National Parks, Flying across the Pacific, Hawaiian bird man legend. // ISSUE 4 leads with Naval Defense of the Pacific by Sidney Ballou of the Navy League's Honolulu Section. Other content includes the joint Pan-Pacific Information and Tourist Bureau, Easter in the Pacific, impressions of Honolulu, Grace Sedgwick in Peru, how Japan is Americanizing Manchuria, Honolulu owls legend, the passing of old Hawaii (with photos of an "old native" with surfboard and "newcomers riding the surf"), Australasia, South Seas feasts and famine, and the first regular Pan-Pacific Congress. // ISSUE 5 leads with Polynesian sport and games. Other articles feature New Zealand, California's first fruit products, Hawaiian geography, curio shops, Percy Hunter on country life in Australia, Fiji and South Sea Islands fashion, and active Samoan volcanoes. // ISSUE 6 ("Outdoor Number") leads on development of Pearl Harbor by Albert Pierce Taylor. Other content includes New Zealand's glaciers, Kamehameha Day on Hawaii, Hawaii for the White Man, Samoa's volcanoes (concluded), NSW's Jenolan Caves, watersports of the South Seas (including Australian bodysurfing), Manila, cruising in Hawaii, Spokane, Hawaii as a Summer Resort. Encyclopedia has a Gurrey / Duke ad (p133).…