James Michener was a big man in more ways than the one for which he was famous.

FORBES: Fact and Comment

Michener had an amazing knack for combining narrative with well-researched history that made his books both entertaining and educational.

FORBES: Fact and Comment

But Mr Michener brought a believable version of other people's history to many American readers who were not by inclination curious about foreign parts.

ECONOMIST: James Michener

An orphan who never knew who his real parents were, he was brought up in Pennsylvania by Mabel Michener, a poor Quaker widow, who was given his date of birth as February 3rd, 1907.

ECONOMIST: James Michener

Michener was no seat-warmer on the Board.

FORBES: Fact and Comment

Bartlett Sher, who oversaw the show, thanked Rodgers, and Hammerstein, along with original director Joshua Logan and James Michener, who wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning Tales of the South Pacific, the collection of short stories which inspired the production.

BBC: Pacific scoops seven Tony Awards

For someone in his early twenties to have graduated summa cum laude from Amherst, to have been given a Michener grant, and to have published, one year out of Iowa City, an unremittingly bleak villanelle in the T.

NEWYORKER: Great Experiment