18 Facts About Frederick O'Brien

Frederick O'Brien was an American author, journalist, hobo, peripatetic world traveler, and public administrator.

Frederick O'Brien wrote three best-selling travel books about French Polynesia between 1919 and 1922: White Shadows in the South Seas, Mystic Isles of the South Seas, and Atolls of the Sun.

Frederick O'Brien was born in 1869 in Baltimore into a comfortable Irish Catholic family.

Frederick O'Brien referred to his devout sister Mary as a Catholic Trotskyite for her radicalism.

Frederick O'Brien spent 1887 exploring Venezuela and Brazil by foot, and worked in asphalt pits in Trinidad.

Frederick O'Brien worked as a reporter for future USpresident Warren Harding's newspaper in Marion, Ohio.

Frederick O'Brien worked for the Columbus Dispatch, filed articles with such outlets as The Honolulu Advertiser and the San Francisco Chronicle.

Frederick O'Brien's experiences led him to advocate for Philippine Independence and to become anti-imperialistic, opposing US imperial ambitions in the Philippines and Latin America.

Frederick O'Brien visited Tahiti and Samoa in 1921 researching for his next book.

Wilder later sued Frederick O'Brien, claiming that she was the ghost writer of White Shadows and deserved co-authorship and half the royalties, a claim with some credibility as Frederick O'Brien was a storyteller, rather than a disciplined writer.

Frederick O'Brien enchanted readers with his skillful depiction of moonlit walks along warm-water beaches, exotic tales and scenes, and photos of bare-breasted Polynesian women.

Atolls was not "entirely successful" with reviews suggesting that Frederick O'Brien had run out of ideas.

Frederick O'Brien didn't get from it the joy of the artist in full swing.

Frederick O'Brien settled in Sausalito, California in 1920 and lived there most of the rest of his life.

Journalist Margaret Wickham Watson was his usual companion, his secretary, and sometimes cited as his wife although the two were never married and Frederick O'Brien was never divorced from his first wife.

Frederick O'Brien wrote more stories about the South Seas and worked on his autobiography and a biography of Father Damien, the priest who lived among the lepers in Molokai, Hawaii.

Frederick O'Brien died of congestive heart failure on January 9,1932.

Frederick O'Brien's body was cremated and his ashes were scattered by a friend at the Golden Gate strait on San Francisco Bay.