These two volumes present the field diaries of anthropologist A.B. Lewis, who travelled the former colonies of Melanesia and collected artefacts for Chicago's Field Museum. The book contextualizes the diaries and offers insights into the conditions of Melanesia at the time.

Anthropologist Albert Buell Lewis spent four years travelling through the former colonies of Melanesia. The field diaries that he maintained during this period reveal the story of how Lewis overcame extraordinary difficulties to assemble the collection of artifacts now preserved in Chicago's Field Museum. This book contextualizes the diaries through a descriptive, interwoven commentary, extensive annotation, and a wealth of visual materials. The two volumes offer readers a firsthand account of conditions in Melanesia before World War I, a rare glimpse into a little-known chapter in the history of anthropology, and an inside look at how the world's great natural history and ethnological museums built their collections.