Post #632321 by TikiTomD on Sat, Apr 14, 2012 11:56 AM

It was bound to happen. There were so many South Seas adventure stories and travelogues being published around the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century that someone saw an opportunity to cash in on satire. That someone was George Shepard Chappell, a professional architect and friend of the publisher George Putnam (husband of Amelia Earhart). Using the pseudonym Dr. Walter E. Traprock, he published in 1921 The Cruise of the Kawa: Wanderings in the South Seas. This book poked fun in particular with Frederick O’Brien’s South Seas travelogues. Here’s the Amazon.com description of the book...

1921. With seventeen illustrations and a map. Walter E. Traprock is the pseudonym for George S. Chappell. The Cruise of the Kawa is a professional, carefully crafted joke in the form of a parody. Towards the end of the story it introduces the several authors whose work it has aped: Fred O'Brien, Martin Johnson, William Beebe, MacQuarrie, Captain Bligh and Joseph Conrad. The actual author was George S. Chappell, a professional architect trained at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris after graduating from Yale in 1899. He was also known as George Shepard. He wrote a series of similar books over a 15-year period, into the 1930's.

In the excerpt below, the crew of the Kawa has been lost for some indeterminate time, having intended to land in Tahiti. Giving up all hope, they abandoned the tiller and proceeded to consume the last of their food and drink in a final party, described as a wild orgy that lasted two days before they exhausted all supplies. During that time, the Kawa sailed free of crew intervention and, just as the supplies ran out, crashed onto the shore of their intended destination, Papeete. In the onshore celebration that follows, Doctor Funk’s are the alcoholic beverage of choice...

This web site has more information on George Chappell, including a comic strip based on Dr. Walter E. Traprock, world renowned explorer and adventurer.

-Tom