In tracing the line of the Pacific Tale from 1890 to 1950, I demonstrate how the tropes that set the sub-genre in motion, especially through the influence of Herman Melville, come full circle in the fictions of James A. Michener. With the rise of writing in English by Pacific Islanders themselves, the Pacific Tale is finally left behind in favour of writing that is of rather than about the Pacific. This shift is reflected in the change from Pacific to Oceanic thinking, promoted in essays by both Albert Wendt and Epeli Hau‘ofa, as both outline new ways of thinking that centre Oceania and its people in an inclusive imaginary based on the ocean itself. Wendt’s early short fiction explicitly addresses the heritage of the Pacific tale, when his narrator Pepe aspires to be another Stevenson, the Tusitala, by telling his own tale. Utilising traditional Sāmoan storytelling techniques, Wendt infuses his writing with trickster figures and stories from his Sāmoan heritage, thereby creating a new era of writing in English in the Pacific. Similarly, Hau‘ofa draws on Tongan high oratory and kava circle tall tales to create his bawdy parodies of development and foreign aid in the fictional Tikong. Both pepper their tales with names from Pacific languages that construct different audiences depending on knowledge of those languages, marking the time when fiction in English about Oceania is finally of Oceania.