25 Years Later, a New Sale
by John F. Baker -- Publishers Weekly, 7/30/2001
That's how long ago graduate student David Stannard and young Oxford editor Susan Rabiner first encountered each other. She bought his dissertation, The Puritan Way of Death (still in print at OUP). Now he's professor of history at the University of Hawaii, and she's a literary agent, but they stayed in touch, and this time she's selling a book for him. It's Honor Killing: Clarence Darrow's Spectacular Last Case and the Making of Modern Hawaii, and Viking Penguin's Wendy Wolf just preempted it in the face of considerable interest from half a dozen other publishers. It's the story of how the famous Monkey Trial lawyer went to Hawaii to act for a rich white woman who falsely accused a Hawaiian of rape—and how the case ultimately toppled the oligarchy that had ruled the islands. Wolf bought world rights, and plans to publish in May 2004.
