Item #4603 Hawaiian Surfboard. Tom Blake.
Hawaiian Surfboard
Hawaiian Surfboard
Hawaiian Surfboard

Hawaiian Surfboard

Honolulu: Paradise of the Pacific Press, 1935. Offset. 6 ⅛ x 8 ¼ in. Bound in original hand-painted tapa-cloth with titles in black on upper board, the issue without surfers on the upper covers. [16], iv, 5-95 pp. Illustrated with 32 photographic plates, and other illustrations throughout text. Very good. Slightly cocked, with rubbing to extremities and some innocuous soiling to endpapers, as well as a couple small pieces of paper adhered to endpapers. Two early and dated ownership signatures to front pastedown endpaper. Item #4603

The exceptionally rare first edition of the first full-length book entirely devoted to surfing, with hand-stenciled boards.

Tom Blake (1902-1994) was an early surfing and health foods pioneer. The inventor of the hollow surfboard, which this text describes, and the first person (along with Sam Reid) to surf Malibu Point, Blake is considered by many to the founder of California surf culture. He is one of the key figures to have turned surfing from a regional Hawaiian sport into an national and international phenomenon.

“The most important publication in the surfing canon.” - Timothy DeLaVega, 200 Years of Surfing Literature.

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