author
Charles Warren Stoddard
1843–1909
Best known for vivid travel writing about Hawaiʻi and the South Pacific, this American author brought warmth, curiosity, and an eye for everyday detail to his books. He also moved through the lively literary world of nineteenth-century San Francisco, publishing poetry, sketches, and memoirs alongside his journeys.
5 Audiobooks
In the Footprints of the Padres
by Charles Warren Stoddard
Summer Cruising in the South Seas
by Charles Warren Stoddard
A Bit of Old China
by Charles Warren Stoddard
Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska
by Charles Warren Stoddard
South-Sea Idyls
by Charles Warren Stoddard
About the author
Born in Rochester, New York, on August 7, 1843, he moved with his family to San Francisco as a boy and began publishing poems while still young. He later became known as a travel writer, especially for books and sketches shaped by visits to Hawaiʻi and other Pacific islands, where his writing mixed observation, humor, and affection for place.
His career connected him with major literary circles of his time. He wrote for California periodicals, knew figures such as Mark Twain and Walt Whitman, and built a reputation as a distinctive western voice whose work ranged from poetry and travel pieces to memoir and religious writing.
Later in life he taught literature at the University of Notre Dame and remained an active man of letters. He died in Monterey, California, on April 23, 1909, and is remembered today chiefly for travel writing that opened a personal, human window onto the Pacific world for American readers.