Errol Strikes Gold in New Guinea – By the Light of His Hurricane Lamps

When Errol moved to Salamaua, Papua New Guinea, he “plunged” himself into reading great works of literature – through “Russian novelists, Greek philosophers, French writers” he nightly “skipped, waded, muddled” and “sometimes swam well”, by the light of his hurricane lamps, fondling these books as if [he] were running his hands through a lovely woman’s hair”. “An inner need for learning sprang up in [him]” “to connect with the ideas of the world” – a need that proved pivotal in his life. This was where and how Errol found gold in New Guinea, as he put it.

Here’s Errol’s own description of that transformative time & experience:

And here’s pre-WWII Salamaua, where Errol lived:

Errol’s Jungle Reading List included:

Aristotle

Honore de Balzac

George Baudelaire (Correction: that should obviously be Charles Baudelaire!)

Victor Hugo

Guy de Maupassant

Plato

Edmond Rostand – Errol particularly liked the “beauty of style” of Rostand, who he read with the help of a French dictionary, and said had the “greatest influence upon [him]”. He specifically cited L’Aiglon, the story of Napoleon II. I imagine he also read Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac. Here’s some images of the books as Errol may have seen them:

Robert Louis Stevenson

H. G. Wells

Here are some 1930 images of The Outline of History, as Errol may have seen it:

— Tim