Travels with Stevenson Robert...
Transcript of Travels with Stevenson Robert...
An encounter with a multi-faceted writer and an adventure loving traveller.
Robert Louis Stevenson rebelled against his upper class origins and high society, driven by a real interest in his fellow men, regardless of race or social status.
E X H I B I T I O N C A T A L O G U E
Travels with
Robert LouisStevenson
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Illustration: J. Debiessefrom a photo belonging tothe National Library of Scotland
Exhibition catalogue publishedand producedin 2008, and translatedin April 2012by:
Editorial
Follow the travels of Robert Louis Stevenson through series of images, quotes, drawings, photographs and texts recounting his rich and colourful life.
Be warned though! This encounter may well surprise you in many ways. It is the sort of meeting that is infinitely enriching… a revelation that strikes a chord somewhere with everyone.
Stevenson the Scot, the Frenchman, the American, the Samoan… citizen of the word.
Stevenson the writer, the traveller, the patient, the lover of Fanny, a multi-faceted personality nurturing a remarkable life’s work.
This great writer travelled through our remote lands in autumn 1878 accompanied by his donkey, Modestine. The present exhibition celebrates the 130th anniversary of his adventure.
The presentations that you will discover are one of the anniversary gifts and represent the fruit of exchange, sharing and contacts made through and around the writer.
‘Travels with Robert Louis Stevenson’ is a tribute to this pioneer who has incited us to take a fresh look at our own natural and cultural heritage. This testimonial represents an account of the heritage offered by Robert Louis Stevenson, for all to appreciate and enjoy.
His life was short, his existance intense.
Bon voyage!
The President, Anne Nourry Chrétien, and the Association’s board members.
December 2008
Conference given by Michel Le Bris during a presentation of the exhibition in Florac on 30th September 2008.
We would like to thank the following for their contributions:
Michel Le Bris (writer, specialist on Stevenson)
Daniel Travier (curator of the museum at St-Jean-du-Gard)
André Crémillieux (Monastier-sur-Gazeille Museum)
Christel Gérardin (Port-Cros National Park)
Ingrid Hoksbergen (Cévennes National Park)
Jim Jeffrey (Scottish Natural Heritage)
Sheila Mackensie (National Library of Scotland)
Rosemary Johnston (R. L. Stevenson Club Edinburgh)
Ian Nimmo (R. L. Stevenson Club Edinburgh)
Ian Gardiner (R. L. Stevenson Club Edinburgh)
Linda Dryden (Edinburgh Napier University)
Richard Scherrer (Cévennes National Park)
Odile Guigon (English teacher, Association Sur le chemin de Stevenson)
Le musée des Vallées Cévenoles (Saint-Jean-du-Gard)
The National Library of Scotland (Edinburgh)
The Scottish Natural Heritage (Edinburgh)
L’association Artistes du bout du Monde (Grez-sur-Loing)
Port-Cros National Park
Le Club Cévenol
L’Oise aux livres Multimedia Library (Étréaupont)
Regional Park of Avesnois
The Writers Museum (Edinburgh)
And all the financial contributors to the exhibition.
Exhibition design: Patricia Grime (l’Arbre à Pain)
Layout: Jacques Debiesse
Printing (catalogue and poster): Imprimerie Rimbaud
Translation: Nigel Connor
English typesetting: J-Philippe Guillerme
The present exhibition is presented by the Association Sur le Chemin de Robert Louis Stevenson to celebrate the 130th anniversary of Stevenson’s journey through the Cévennes.
The path followed by Robert Louis Stevenson in 1878 represents a link between the Haute-Loire, Ardèche, Lozère and Gard departments, between the Auvergne and the Languedoc-Roussillon regions. It has today become one of the most popular hiking trails in France (GR® 70: 252km from Le Puy-en-Velay to Alès).
The association was established in 1994 in order to develop a network of tourism profes-sionals along the hiking trail, to promote the itinerary, to accompany walkers in preparing their adventure and to provide information about points of interest and heritage sites along the trail and in the different territories it crosses.
MilestonesUnited Kingdom
Victoria was crowned Queen of the United Kingdom in 1837. The Industrial Revolution took place during her reign.
Literature
Birth of Pierre Loti and Guy de Maupassant, 1850.
Publication of Moby Dick by Melville and death of Cooper (The Last of the Mohicans), 1851.
Works by StevensonThe History of Moses (1856)
Dictated by Robert Lewis to his mother at the age of 6.
Novel
The Plague Cellar (1864)
Essay
The Pentland Uprising (1866)This essay about the uprising of Scottish farmers in the 17th century was published by his father.
Margaret Balfour, born into a family of jurists and pastors, had very fragile health which her son inherited: he suffered throughout his life from pulmonary emphysema.
From 1862, cures and travelling took Robert Lewis to Germany, southern England, the French Riviera and Italy.
Thomas Stevenson, an eccentric engineer, built lighthouses as did his own
father and grandfather before him. From 1864
he took his son with him on his business trips along
the Scottish coastlines with a view to training his
future successor.
To Alison CunninghamFrom Her BoyFor the long nights you lay awakeAnd watched for my unworthy sake:For your most comfortable hand�at led me through the uneven land:For all the story-books you read:For all the pains you comforted:For all you pitied, all you bore,In sad and happy days of yore: –My second Mother, my first Wife,�e angel of my infant life –From the sick child, now well and old,Take, nurse, the little book you hold!R.L.S. - Dedication “A Child’s Garden of Verses”
Alison Cunningham, Stevenson’s nurse whom he called Cummy, filled him with stories and legends, with terrifying religious tales and numerous adventure books.
He dedicated a collection of poems to her. A Child’s Garden of Verses.
A Scottish child hears much of shipwreck, outlying iron skerries, pitiless breakers, and great sea-lights; much of heathery mountains, wild clans, and hunted Covenanters.R.L.S. - �e Foreigner At Home
I have three powerful impressions of my childhood: my sufferings when I was sick, my delights in convalescence at my grandfather’s manse of Colinton, near Edinburgh, and the unnatural activity of my mind after I was in bed at night.R.L.S. - Memoirs of Himself
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Robert Lewis and his mother Margaret Balfour in 1854
Robert Lewis Stevenson at the age of 15
Two servants, Thomas and Margaret Stevenson, Robert Lewis and Alison Cunningham in Peebles near Edinburgh in 1865.
Drawing by Stevenson illustrating his tale: The History of Moses
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Robert Lewis Stevenson and his father Thomas Stevenson in 1865
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Edinburgh Collection at St-Jean-du-Gard Museum
Trustees of the National Library of Scotland – Edinburgh
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Work on the Bell Rock lighthouse, built by Stevenson’s grandfather Wikimedia Commons
MilestonesUnited Kingdom
Economic boom in the Victorian era 1850-1870.
The English week (stopping work on Saturday at midday) spread throughout the United Kingdom.
Wages increased by 25 to 30% between 1850 and 1875.
The majority of the population now lived in towns and cities.
The number of domestic servants, the keystone to the notion of bourgeoisie, rose from 840 000 to 1.3 million between 1851 and 1871.
Literature
Publication of Ninety-Three, Victor Hugo, 1870.
Publication of Around the World in 80 Days, Jules Verne, 1870.
Death of Alexandre Dumas senior, 1870.
Works by StevensonThe Philosophy of Umbrellas (1871)
Roads (1873-1874)
Victor Hugo’s Romances (1873-1874)
On the enjoyment of unpleasant places (1873-1874)
Edinburgh: picturesque notes (1878)
The Education of an Engineer (1888)
The ages of 17 and 21, in order to further his scientific studies, Stevenson was sent by his father on inspection tours along the Scottish coastlines and islands.
The eccentric student with long hair shone by his absence.
In 1871, he decided that he would not become an engineer because he wanted to devote his life to literature. In order to make this easier on his father, he signed up to study law.
In 1870, along with some fellow students, Stevenson created a university review… and began to frequent local bars.
The growing family conflict reached a flash point in 73 when his father discovered the LJR*, a club founded with his cousin Bob with a tenet of ‘disregard everything our parents taught us’, through which Stevenson communicated his rebellion against religious hypocrisy and the news that he declared himself to be an atheist. In 1873, Stevenson met Sidney Colvin, a Professor at Cambridge, who introduced him to the literary environment and published several of his essays.* Liberty Justice Reverence
In 75, at the age of 25, Stevenson qualified as a lawyer but quickly abandoned this profession after early failures at the bar.
I had already my own private determination to be an author; I loved the art of words and the appearances of life; and travelers, and headers, and rubble, and polished ashlar, and pierres perdues, and even the thrilling question of the string-course, interested me only (if they interested me at all) as properties for some possible romance or as words to add to my vocabulary.R.L.S. - �e Education of an Engineer
Hence my acquaintance was of what would be called a very low order. […] I was the companion of seamen, chimney sweeps and thieves; my circle was being continually changed by the action of the police magistrate. […]I do not believe these days were among the least happy I have spent. I was distinctly petted and respected; the women were most gentle and kind to me. I might have left all my money for a month and they would have returned every farthing of it.R.L.S. - Memoirs of Himself
We have had an awful scene. All that my father had to say has been put forth – not that it was anything new; only it is the devil to hear. O dear God, I don’t know what to do – the world goes hopelessly round about me – there is no more possibility of doing, living, being anything but a beast and there’s the end of it…I am killing my father.Letter from R.L.S. to Fanny Sitwell, 22 September 1873
“Jink” was a word of our own; for we had a language compounded of many slangs and languages in which we expressed indifferently common things that had already a much better name in English, and the new or half understood ideas for which there were no names, or none with which we were acquainted. As a rule of conduct, “Jink” consisted in doing the most absurd acts for the sake of their absurdity and the consequent laughter.R.L.S. - Graham Balfour, �e life of Robert Louis Stevenson
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Stevenson the lawyer, 1875
Edinburgh in 1890
Robert Lewis and his father Thomas
Portrait of Victor Hugo by Félix Nadar
Illustration of Stevenson’s “Edinburgh: Picturesque Notes” by W. E. Lockhart – 1878
Stevenson’s student notebook
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Louis drawn by Fanny - 1877
In autumn 76, Louis met Fanny Osbourne who had travelled to Grez-sur-Loing with her two children, Isobel (aged 17) and Lloyd (aged 8), in order to convalesce after the death of her youngest son.
This American lady, married to a gold prospector, had come to France to study drawing.
Louis, aged 26 at the time, was seduced by this independent
and focused lady, who was 10 years his elder.
Fanny at the time when she met StevensonThe Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University
Artists at the breakfast table in Grez-sur-Loing by Peter Severin Kroyer, an acquaintance of Stevenson’s
Grez-sur-Loing
In 75 and 76, Stevenson and his cousin Bob mingled with artists and painters in the villages around the forest of Fontainebleau.
At this time he gave a French twist to his own name, from Lewis to Louis.
He spent the winter of 75 in Edinburgh. His abandoning the profession of lawyer and the tone of certain of his essays (An Apology for Idlers…) worsened the family tension.
From 76 Louis travelled to France increasingly frequently, to be with Fanny who he wished to marry, against the advice of his family and friends.
In August 78, Fanny was called back to America by her husband who threatened to cut off her income. She left France with her children.
MilestonesFrance
3rd Republic presided by Marshal Mac-Mahon, 1873-79.
Painting
From 1850, painters from throughout Europe and the United States came to join their French counterparts in springtime to paint outdoors in Barbizon, Grez-sur-Loing… in the footsteps of Millet, Rousseau, Corot.
First exhibition by the Impressionists, 1874.
Death of the painters Millet and Corot, 1875.
Works by StevensonShort stories
An Old Song (published anonymously 1877)
A Lodging for the Night. A History of François Villon (1877)
Essays
An Apology for Idlers (1876)
Virginibus Puerisque (1876)
Charles of Orleans (1876)
Jules Verne’s Stories (1876)
François Villon: Student, Poet, Housebreaker (1877)
Forest Notes (1878)
Travel Writing
An Inland Voyage (1878)
Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes (1879)
Idleness so called, which does not consist in doing nothing, but in doing a great deal not recognised in the dogmatic formularies of the ruling class, has as good a right to state its position as industry itself. R.L.S. - An Apology for Idlers
Give to me the life I love,Let the lave go by me,Give the jolly heaven aboveAnd the byway nigh meBed in the bush with stars to seeBread I dip in the river –�ere’s the life for a man like me,�ere’s the life for ever.R.L.S. - �e Vagabond
My dear mother, You must understand (I want to say this in a letter) that I shall be a nomad, more or less, until my days be done. You don’t know how much I used to long for it in old days; how I used to go and look at the trains leaving, and wish to go with them [...] take me as I am, and give me time. I must be a bit of a vagabond. Letter from R.L.S., 16 October 1874
Writers’ Museum - Edinburgh
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Stevenson’s bohemian friends at Grez-sur-Loing (Bob Stevenson, Robert Louis’ cousin is wearing hooped stockings)
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The village of Barbizon Drawing by Stevenson
Margaret Balfour Stevenson
�e student of letters […] enjoyed a strenuous idleness full of visions, hearty meals, long, sweltering walks, mirth among companions; and still floating like music through his brain, foresights of great works that Shakespeare might be proud to have conceived [...]R.L.S. - Fontainebleau, Barbizon, Grez, Across the Plain
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Landscape at Grez - Oscar Törna, 1877
Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette - Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1876
Charles of Orleans National archives
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Charleroi
Landrecies
ÉtreuxTupigny
Origny-Sainte-Benoîte
La Fère
Chauny
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Pont-Sainte-Maxence
L’isle-Adam
Creil
MaubeugeHaumont
Pont-sur-Sambre
Vadencourt
Noyon
Verberie
Précy-sur-Oise
Pontoise
Moy
Brussels
Paris
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Works by StevensonTravel writing
An Inland Voyage (1878)This work was acclaimed by the critics and had a print run of 750 copies.
Milestones
Literature
Birth of Jack London who later navigated throughout the Pacific in the footsteps of Stevenson, 1876.
Publication of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain, 1876.
“�ese gentlemen are pedlars? – Ces messieurs sont des marchands ? –” asked the landlady. And then, without waiting for an answer, which I suppose she thought superfluous in so plain a case, recommended us to a butcher who lived hard by the tower, and took in travellers to lodge.R.L.S.
We had projected an old age on the canals of Europe. […] We should be seen pottering on deck in all the dignity of years, our white beards falling into our laps. […] �ere should be books in the cabin, and tobacco-jars, and some old Burgundy as red as a November sunset…R.L.S.
To see the barges waiting their turn at a lock affords a fine
lesson of how easily the world may be taken.
�ere should be many contented spirits on board, for such a life
is both to travel and to stay at home.
R.L.S.
Washerwomen in blue dresses, fishers in blue blouses, diversified the green banks; and the relation of the two colours was like that of the flower and the leaf in the forget-me-not. A symphony in forget-me-not; I think �eophile Gautier might thus have characterised that two days’ panorama.R.L.S.
Mankind was never so happily inspired as when it made a cathedral; […] �e height of spires cannot be taken by trigonometry; they measure absurdly short, but how tall they are to the admiring eye! R.L.S.
I wish our way had always lain among woods. Trees are the most civil society. An old oak that has been growing where he stands since before the Reformation, taller than many spires, more stately than the greater part of mountains, and yet a living thing, liable to sicknesses and death, like you and me: is not that in itself a speaking lesson in history ?R.L.S.
Illustration: Pascal Ramelli
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Antwerp - F. Hens & E. Joors, 1880
Canal in Brussels. Eugène Boudin, 1871
Banks of the Oise - Charles-François Daubigny, 1865
Noyon Cathedral
Canal towpath - 1880 / 1890
The Loing Canal. Alfred Sisley, 1892
Souvenir of Mortefontaine. Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, 1864
The quotes on the panel are from: An Inland Voyage.
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Illustration by Walter Crane for the first edition of An Inland Voyage in 1878
The Washing House. Camille Pissaro, 1872
As long as the Oise was a small rural river, it took us near by people ’s doors, and we could hold a conversation with natives in the riparian fields. But now that it had grown so wide, the life along shore passed us by at a distance.R.L.S.
Camille Pissaro and his wife in 1877, in Pontoise
Le Monastier-sur-Gazeille
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TowardsLe Puy
1 - Detail of the church at Le Monastier
2 - Cross between Le Monastier and St-Martin-de-Fugères
3 - Landscape of the Velay valley
4 - Lake at Bouchet-St-Nicolas
5 - Château de Luc
6 - Chapel at Cheylard-l’Évêque (between Fouzilhac and Luc)
7 - Valley of Finiels, Mont Lozère
8 - Le Pont-de-Montvert
9 - Landscape of the Cevennes at Col de St-Pierre (between St-Germain -de-Calberte and St-Jean-du-Gard)
Colour photos: Michel Verdier © Association Stevenson
Michel Verdier © Association Stevenson
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Café at Saint Etienne-Vallée-Française c.1900 (between St-Germain-de-Calberte and St-Jean-du-Gard)Ph. G Lafont, © St. Jean-du-Gard Museum
La Montagnarde carriage at St-Jean-du-Gard around 1900.
Stevenson took this carriage to AlèsPh. G. Bordarier © St. Jean-du-Gard Museum
Gathering chestnuts in Saint Jean-du-Gard around 1900Ph. G. Bordarier © St. Jean-du-Gard Museum
Cassagnas village (between St-Julien-d’Arpaon and St. Germain-de-Calberte)© col. St. Jean-du-Gard museum
Florac fair around 1900Ph. P. Arnal © St. Jean-du-Gard museum
Fountain at Saint-Étienne-Vallée-Française c.1900 (between St-Germain -de-Calberte and St-Jean -du-Gard)Ph. G Lafont © St. Jean-du-Gard museum
Mont Lozère around 1900Ph. P. Gautier © St. Jean-du-Gard museum
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I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. �e great affair is to move; to feel the needs and hitches of our life more nearly; to come down off this feather-bed of civilisation, and find the globe granite underfoot and strewn with cutting flints.
For I was now upon the limit of Velay, and all that I beheld lay in another county – wild Gevaudan, mountainous, uncultivated, and but recently disforested from terror of the wolves. […] For this was the land of the ever-memorable BEAST, the Napoleon Bonaparte of wolves.R.L.S.
I had something on my mind […] I had been most hospitably received and punctually served in my green caravanserai. �e room was airy, the water excellent, and the dawn had called me to a moment.R.L.S.
Ever and again a little wind went by, and the nuts dropped all around me, with a light and dull sound, upon the sward. �e noise was as of a thin fall of great hailstones; but there went with it a cheerful human sentiment of an approaching harvest and farmers rejoicing in their gains.R.L.S.
If the garden of Eden exists, it lays in the Tarn Valley down to Florac.R.L.S.
�ese are the Cevennes with an emphasis: the Cevennes of the Cevennes. […] A hundred and eighty years ago, the Camisards held a station even on the Lozere, where I stood; […] their affairs were ‘the discourse of every coffee-house’ in London.R.L.S.
My book is through the press. It has good passages. I can say no more […]But lots of it is mere protestations to F., most of which I think you will understand. �at is to me the main thread of interest.Letter from R.L.S. to his cousin Bob, spring 1879
Works by StevensonTravel writing
Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes (1879)
MilestonesHistory
Birth of Joseph Stalin, 1878.
3rd Universal Exhibition: for the first time, two automobiles were exhibited in Paris, 1878.
Literature
Death of Georges Sand, 1878.
Publication of A Captain at Fifteen, Jules Verne, 1878.
Between the old lady and myself I think there was a real attachment […]When I was about to leave she bade me good-bye for this life in a somewhat touching manner. We should not meet again, she said; it was a long farewell, and she was sorry. But life is so full of crooks, old lady, that who knows?R.L.S. - �e Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Swanston Edition 1911
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The house where Stevenson stayed at Le Monastier
Stevenson walker and writer:
1873 - Roads (essay).
1874 - Walking the Chilterns.
1875 - Barbizon - Châtillon-sur-Loire with Walter Simpson (110 km).
1876 - From Carrick to Galloway by foot, in winter.
1876 - Walking tours (essay).
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The quotes on the panel are from: Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes.
Emigrants on a ship between England and America at the time of Stevenson’s voyage
Emigrants, Felix Schlesinger – 1851
A Minatarre Chief
Illustration made in 1833 by the Swiss painter Karl Bodmer from a trip to America.
Stevenson met him at Grez-sur-Loing with the bohemians.
He referred to him as “the formidable Bodmer, the Baily of our commonwealth”.
We were a company of the rejected; drunken, the incompetent, the weak, the prodigal, all who had been unable to prevail against circumstances in the one land were now fleeing pitifully to another […] We were a shipful of failures, the broken men of England. Yet it must not be supposed that these people exhibited depression. �e scene, on the contrary, was cheerful. R.L.S - �e Amateur Emigrant
�e sailors called me “mate”, the officers addressed me as “my man”, my comrades accepted me without hesitation for a person of their own character and experience, but with some curious information.R.L.S - �e Amateur Emigrant
If I should have to push on far by rail, I shall bring nothing but my fine bones to port.Letter from R.L.S. to Sidney Colvin on board the Devonia, August 1879
I am sitting on the top of the cars with a mill party from Missouri going west for his health. Desolate flat prairie upon all hands. […] What it is to be ill in an emigrant train let those declare who know!Letter from R.L.S. to Henley, 23 August 1879
It is now about ten on Wednesday morning, so I have already been about forty hours in the cars. It is impossible to lie down in them, which must end by being very wearying.Letter from R.L.S. to Sidney Colvin, August 1879
To cross such a plain is to grow homesick for the mountains. I longed for the Black Hills of Wyoming, which I knew we were soon to enter, like and ice-bound whaler for the spring.R.L.S - Across the Plains
… the noble red man of old story – he over whose own hereditary continent we had been steaming all these days. […] now and again at way stations, a husband and wife and a few children, disgracefully dressed out with the sweepings of civilisation, came forth and stared upon the emigrants. �e silent stoicism of their conduct, and the pathetic degradation of their appearance, would have touched any thinking creature, but my fellow-passengers danced and jested round them with a truly Cockney baseness.I was ashamed for the thing we call civilisation.R.L.S. - Across the Plains
I am doing right; I know no one will think so; and don’t care. My body, however, is all to whistles; I don’t eat; but, man, I can sleep! Letter from R.L.S to Henley, 23 August 1879
Works by StevensonTravel writing
Across the Plains (1892)
From the Clyde to Sandy Hook by boat (1895)
Stevenson met with great difficulty in publishing his account of this voyage having been disavowed by his family and friends.
The accounts were completed in January 1879 but only published in full after his death under the titleof The Amateur Emigrant (1895).
God only knows how much courage and suffering is buried in that manuscript.Letter from R.L.S. to Sidney Colvin - San Francisco, May 1880, about his sea voyage
MilestonesCalifornia
Influx of a large number of immigrants from Europe and Asia.
Discovery and exploitation of immense mineral (the gold rush), natural and agricultural resources.
Construction of the first transcontinental railroad, 1869.
United Kingdom
Seven million persons emigrated between 1850 and 1900.
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American railroad circa 1870Wikimedia Commons
The Devonia, the ship Stevenson travelled upon from England to the United States
Pittsburgh, Otto Krebs - 1874
Sacramento Valley Albert Bierstad
Portrait of Stevenson in 1879. Peter Severin KroyerSt. Jean-du-Gard Museum
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The guest house where Stevenson stayed in Monterey
The ranch where Stevenson, in dangerously poor health, was taken in by a former companion of Kit Carson
MilestonesUnited States
The Gold Rush accelerated white colonisation of western America.
Industrialisation brought on sweeping changes; towns were established in many areas and grew very quickly.
Immigration mushroomed and was widely diversified.
Works by StevensonEssays
San Carlos Day (1879)
Buried treasure (1879)
The Old Pacific Capital, Monterey (1880)
San Francisco (1883)
Narrative
The Silverado Squatters (1883)
In September 79, Louis met up again with Fanny in Monterey. She in turn soon left for Oakland to expedite her divorce. Louis stayed in a boarding house where he wrote unceasingly. He repeatedly, but in vain, implored his friends in the English literary circles to publish his work to help him earn a living.
In December 79, suffering from pleurisy, Stevenson was saved by Jules Simoneau, an innkeeper with French origins. He managed to survive thanks to an income of two dollars per week he earned from writing articles for the Monterey Californian. He never knew though, that Jules Simoneau offered this same sum in meals to the owner of the newspaper.
“O mon bon Simoneau!, and the candles are blown out, and the shadows fall early round the prison, and we are all scattered to the four winds of heaven, and you yourself, as they write to me, are gone somewhere vaguely into the south, among the sand and the tarantulas, and I cannot even send you this word that your kindnesses are still remembered!R.L.S. Published in From Scotland to Silverado by James Hart 1966
And understand me, I have to get money soon, or it has no further interest for me; I am nearly through my capital; with what pluck I can muster against great anxieties and in a very shattered state of health, I am trying to do things that will bring in money soon; and I could not, if I were not mad, step out of my way to work at what might perhaps bring me in more but months ahead.Letter from R.L.S. to Henley, 11 December 1879 Monterey, National Library of Scotland
I have to drop from a 50 cent to a 25 cent dinner; to-day begins my fall. I regret nothing, and do not even dislike these straits, though the flesh will rebel on occasion.Letter from R.L.S. to Charles Baxter, 26 January 1880, San Francisco
Treasure Island is somewhere near Point Lobos, Monterey, on the route to Silverado.Michel le Bris - Vers l’Île au Trésor - �e Route to Silverado
I am living at an Angora goat-ranch, in the Coast Line Mountains, eighteen miles from Monterey. I was camping out, but got so sick that the two rancheros took me in and tended me. One is an old bear-hunter, seventy-two years old, and a captain from the Mexican war; the other a pilgrim, and one who was out with the bear flag and under Fremont when California was taken by the States. �ey are both true frontiersmen, and most kind and pleasant. Captain Smith, the bear-hunter, is my physician, and I obey him like an oracle.Letter from R.L.S. to Sidney Colvin, September 1879
Robert Louis and Fanny, the year of their marriage
Point Lobos, near Monterey in California
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At the turn of 1880, Louis moved to San Francisco in order to be closer to Fanny.
He was in a very delicate financial situation and was suffering from hunger.
Further to a malaria attack, Fanny decided to throw convention to the wind and invited him to stay with her.
His parents, alarmed by his condition, agreed to send him money and accepted his marriage to Fanny.
They married in May 80 and spent their honeymoon in the buildings of a deserted mine.
The Silverado Squatters relates this new adventure.
Far away were hilltops like little islands. Nearer, a smoky surf beat about the foot of precipices and poured into all the coves of these rough mountains.R.L.S. - �e Silverado Squatters
The abandoned miners’ hut where Louis and Fanny spent their honeymoon
Illustration from the cover of The Silverado Squatters,
1883
Illustration from The Silverado
Squatters, 1905
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Map of Treasure Island - 1883National Library of Scotland- Edinburgh
I know I shall do better work than ever I have done before; but, mind you, it will not be like it.Source Letter from R.L.S. to Sidney Colvin, January 1880, San Francisco
From 80 to 82, from cure to cure, the Stevenson family spent summers in Scotland in the Highlands and winters in Davos, in Switzerland.
In summer 81, Stevenson wrote short stories inspired by Scottish legends and landscapes. He also wrote the first 15 chapters of Treasure Island in just 15 days, the remainder being finished in Davos.
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It is depressing to live with dying people… But may Davos forgive me! It has done so much for Louis that I am ashamed to say anything against it.Letter from Fanny Stevenson Michel Le Bris Collection
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Davos as Stevenson would have known it
In spring 82, following his physicians’ recommendations, the Stevenson family chose to set up home in the south of France.
After two months in the suburbs of Marseille, they spent 16 months in Hyères in Villa “La Solitude” which overlooks the town.
In June 84 Stevenson’s health turned for the worse and further rumours of a cholera epidemic incited the family to return to England.
Works by StevensonCollections of essays
Virginibus Puerisque (1881)
Familiar Studies of Men and Books (1882)
Collection of short stories
The New Arabian Nights (1882)
Novels
Treasure Island (1883)
The Black Arrow (1883)
Milestones
Literature & art
Birth of Picasso in 1881, of Pierre Mac Orlan and Kafka in 1883.
Rodin sculpted Les Bourgeois de Calais, 1884.
Science
Robert Koch discovered the cholera bacillus, 1883.
Arthur Conan Doyle
The Pavilion on the Links is the high-water mark of his genius and the first short story in the world.Conan Doyle about a short story collected in a volume entitled: �e New Arabian Nights.
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Cholera in France: disinfection of luggage – 1884
In anything fit to be called by the name of reading, the process itself should be absorbing and voluptuous; we should gloat over a book, be rapt clean out of ourselves, and rise from the perusal, our mind filled with the busiest, kaleidoscopic dance of images, incapable of sleep or continuous thought.R.L.S - A Gossip on Romance
Treasure Island
Treasure Island was first published in 81 as a weekly series in Young Folks magazine, under the pseudonym of “Captain George North”. It was published as a novel in 83 and is dedicated to Lloyd, Fanny’s son, who inspired the idea.
The Black Arrow
This adventure story takes place in the Highlands and was also published in Young Folks magazine. It was even more successful than Treasure Island and boosted the magazine’s sales.
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�is spot, our garden and our view are sub-celestial. I sing daily with my Bunyan, the great bard, “I dwell already the next door to Heaven”.Letter from R.L.S. to Edmund Gosse, 20 May 1883
Look at the names: “�e Solitude” – is that romantic? “�e Palm Trees” – how is that for the gorgeous East? Letter from R.L.S. to Susan Ferrier, 22 March 1884
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The cottage in Braemar, in the Highlands, where Stevenson wrote Treasure IslandCol. St. Jean-du-Gard museum
“�e most intelligent comments ever written about literature”. Nabokov
“I placed it above all else - A Chapter on Dreams”.Borges
Works by StevensonEssays
A humble remonstrance (1884)
On Some Technical Elements of Style in Literature (1885)
A Chapter on Dreams (1887)
Short stories
The Dynamitter (1885)(written in collaboration with Fanny)
The Merry Men (1887)
Poetry
A Child’s Garden of Verses (1885)
Underwoods (1887)
Novels
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886)
Kidnapped! (1886)
The Misadventures of John Nicholson (1887)
MilestonesLiterature
Death of Victor Hugo, 1885.
Publication of Le Horla, Maupassant, 1886.
Publication of An Iceland Fisherman, Pierre Loti, 1886.
Publication of A Study in Scarlet, Conan Doyle, (first appearance of Sherlock Holmes), 1887.
Theatre poster
Numerous writers paid tribute to the essays Stevenson wrote on the art of fiction:
In 85, Stevenson met Rodinin Paris, who offered hima sculpture entitled “The Eternal Springtime”.
My dear friend, I have before me a portrait drawn of you by an English journal […] I thought myself too old to make new friends but when I think of the pleasure of seeing you again, I feel that I am mistaken.Letter written in French by Stevenson to Rodin Skerryvore - Bournemouth, February 1887
Auguste Rodin by Félix Nadar
Portrait by John Singer Sargent 1887
Artistes du Bout du Monde - Grez-sur-Loing
Fanny had always dreamt of owning a house; Louis’ father bought one for them in Bournemouth.
They stayed there until the latter died.
Successive illnesses had rendered Stevenson all but bed-ridden. Between outbreaks though, he would go off on short trips but would return to angry outbursts from Fanny, who wanted Louis to rest and gather strength.
He wrote tirelessly though and in 86 published two of his greatest novels…
Cliffs in Bournemouth
Fanny in Bournemouth
Cover from a 1907 edition
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In 87, upon arrival in New York, Stevenson was assailed by journalists; Scribner’s Magazine offered him $3,500 for a series of short stories.
The family spent a quiet winter in the snowy climes of Saranac, close to the Canadian border.
Stevenson wrote, in collaboration with his son-in-law Lloyd, The Wrong Box and The Master of Ballantrae.
When Stevenson decided to leave England, Fanny’s son received two letters.
Fanny spoke of her house, of her garden with such sadness, of the unbearable anxiety of once again moving away from the place she described as “her nest”.
(The letter from Louis) was full of joy, even jubilatory. Not a word of regret for the feathered nests, no nostalgia of any sort for domestic comfort… O for a life of adventure!A. Lapierre, Fanny Stevenson: A Romance of Destiny
The Stevenson household in Saranac
Stevenson in Saranac
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The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
This text, which Fanny had made him re-write, made its author famous in the week of its publication: the Archbishop of Canterbury based his sermon on the book and the London Times published a 6 page critic. 40,000 copies were sold in 6 months.
The book has inspired theatre plays, musicals, songs and dozens of films.
I walked… striving vainly to piece together in words my inarticulate but profound impressions. I seem to have been born with a sentiment of something moving in things, of an infinite attraction and horror coupled.R.L.S. - Reminiscences
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Kidnapped!Kidnapped is set in the middle of the 18th century six years after Bonnie Prince Charlie’s great adventure to return the Stewarts to the British throne in the 1745 Uprising.
Illustration by N. C. Wyeth for Kidnapped! (1913)
The magazine which published Treasure Island, Black Arrow and Kidnapped, in serials.
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The Bay of Virgins, Marquesas Islands
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MilestonesThe Marquesas Islands - Tahiti
France annexes these two islands, 1842.
Hawaï
French presence but the island remains independent, 1837.
Hawaii comes under the American protectorate, 1893.
The island is annexed by the United States, 1898.
Works by StevensonNovel
The Master of Ballantrae (1889)
Short story
The Wrong Box, with Lloyd Osbourne (1887)
Travel writings
In the South Seas (1891)
From this somewhat (ahem !) out of the way place, I write to say how d’ye do. It is all a swindle: I chose these isles as having the most beastly population and they are far better and far more civilised than we. I know one old chief Ko-o-amua, a great cannibal in his day, who ate his enemies even as he walked home from killing ‘em, and he is a perfect gentleman and exceedingly amiable and simple-minded: no fool, though. Letter from R.L.S. to Sidney Colvin - Marquesas Islands, July 1888
Kalakaua is a terrible companion; a bottle of fizz is like a glass of sherry to him; he thinks nothing of five or six in an afternoon as a whet for dinner. You should see a photograph of our party after an afternoon with H.H.M.: my! what a crew!Letter from R.L.S. to Charles Baxter - Honolulu, 8 February 1889
On 24 January 1889, the Casco called into the port of Honolulu where the Stevensons stayed for 6 months.
Louis finished the Master of Ballantrae here and started upon his articles on the South Seas.
He became friends with king Kalakaua and took up the latter’s enthusiasm for the idea of a federation of Polynesian islands.
�e first love, the first sunrise, the first South Sea Island, are memories apart, and touched a virginity of sense.R.L.S. - In the South Seas
Stevenson had taken some distance from his friends in the English literary circles but developed his friendship with others, notably Henry James…
My dear Louis, You are too far away – you are too absent, too invisible...friendship is too delicate a matter for such tricks – for cutting great gory masses out of ‘em...�erefore come back. Hang it all – sink it all and come back...Letter from James to Stevenson, July 1888
My Dear James, Yes – I own up – I am untrue to friendship […] But look here, and judge me tenderly. I have had more fun and pleasure of my life these past months than ever before, and more health than any time in ten long years. […] and though the sea is a deathful place, I like to be there, and like squalls (when they are over); and to draw near to a new island, I cannot say how much I like.Letter from Stevenson to James - Honolulu, March 1889
�e house (really here a palace) in which we live, belongs to the sub-chief, Ori, a subject and relation of the Princess. He and his whole family, consisting of his wife, his two little adopted sons, his daughter and her two young babies, turned out to live in a little bird-cage hut of a rooms.R.L.S. - In the South Seas
The Casco put into Tahiti. This was the bad season in terms of climate and Louis, who had recovered somewhat, started haemorrhaging again, forcing him to stay lying down.
The Stevenson family spent two months on the island, waiting for their vessel’s damaged mast to be repaired.
First port of call: The Marquesas Islands
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Stevenson and the princess of Hawaii
In the bungalow rented by the Stevensons: Louis, Lloyd, Fanny and her daughter Belle, and Stevenson’s mother
Stevenson playing a Flageolet
Cover of The Master of Ballantrae 1911
Lloyd, Fanny, Stevenson, the king of Hawaii: Kalakaua and Stevenson’s mother
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The Casco
Henry James by John Singer Sargent
MilestonesLiterature
Kipling travelled to New Zealand and Australia, 1889. His articles were only published in 1899, in From Sea to Sea.
Publication of La Vie Errante, Maupassant, (travel stories from the Italian coast, Sicily and Tunisia), 1889.
Works by StevensonTravel writing
In the South Seas (1891)
This book is a collection of articlepublished in magazines. These texts, which could be viewed as an ethnology study, mewith little enthusiasm from the readers. Publication was stopped because they were very different to Stevenson’s earlier, light heartetravel stories. Stevenson went intdetail about the islanders’ historyand customs, without judgement,simply trying to understand.
By Fanny Stevenson
The Cruise of the Janet Nicholl (1914)
August 90 – Back to Sydney and Stevenson fell ill once again. His doctors confirmed that he could no longer live anywhere else other than in the southern tropics. He would never return to Scotland, France or America…
But, O Low, I love the Polynesian: this civilisation of ours is a dingy ungentlemanly business; it drops out too much of man, and too much of that the very beauty of the poor beast: who has his beauties in spite of Zola.Letter from R.L.S. to Will H. Low - Honolulu, (about) 20 May 1889
When the figurehead came ashore people were terribly
alarmed by the appearance of the “white lady”. �e children
are still frightened into submission by threats of being
handed over to her. […] Lloyd photographed the proud lady with a lot of children and
girls grouped round her…Fanny Stevenson, �e Cruise of the Janet Nicholl
Equator
Gilbert islands: Butaritari, Apemama,
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�is rugged, capable, imperious old dame, with the wild eyes, had deep and tender qualities: her pride in her young husband it seemed that she dissembled, fearing possibly to spoil him;R.L.S. - In the South Seas
Not one of the eleven resident traders came to town,
no captain cast anchor in the lagoon, but we saw him ere the
hour was out. �is was owing to our position between the store and the bar – the Sans Souci,
as the last was called.R.L.S. - In the South Seas
�e King took us on board in his own gig, dressed on the occasion in a naval uniform. He had little to say, he refused refreshment […]�e king is a great character – a thorough tyrant, very much of a gentleman, a poet, a musician, a historian, or perhaps rather more a genealogist.R.L.S. - In the South Seas
Lloyd had photographed the King in his royal robes, a pair
of white duck trousers and a black velveteen coat; over all
was worn a sort of black cloth poncho bordered with
gold fringes.Fanny Stevenson, �e Cruise of the Janet Nicholl
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Tembenoka, the king of Apemama, Kuria, Aranukae
A cargo of pearl oysters
Samoans in local costumes
Fanny, Louis and their friends: Nai Takauti (high chief) and her young husband Nan Tok’ in Butaritari
A typical canoe in the Marshall islands
On the deck of the EquatorTrustees of the National Library of Scotland
Lloyd, Stevenson and Fanny on the Equator
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June 89, the Stevensons embarked on the merchant vessel, the Equator, bound for the Gilbert islands and Samoa.
On the Gilbert islands, Louis worked with Lloyd to write: The Wrecker.
In Samoa, in December 89, the Stevensons bought Vailima: 20 hectares of jungle on the island of Upolu.
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April 90, Stevenson, who had been in Sydney for 3 months, fell ill and had to leave for the tropics. The only ship leaving in that direction was the Janet Nicholl, which he boarded on a stretcher. They travelled for 4 months in the southern seas on this vessel.
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MilestonesSamoa
From 1850, Europeans, mainly traders or coconut planters began to settle on the archipelago.
Treaty of Berlin, 1889.
The Samoa Islands are declared independent.
Germany, who installed the puppet king Laupepa, the United Kingdom and the United States all tried to win influence over the islands.
Literature & painting
Death of Maupassant, 1890.
Kipling travelled in the South Seas and to New Zealand and Australia, 1891.
Works by StevensonPoetry
Ballads (1890)
Roman
The Wreckerwith Lloyd Osbourne (1892)
Short Story
The Beach of Falesa (1892)
Ethnohistorical work
A footnote to history: Eight years of trouble in Samoa (1892)
By Fanny Stevenson
Our Samoan Adventure (1955)
Paul Gauguin moved to Tahiti in 91.
Living in poverty, he returned to Paris in 93. He did not meet Stevenson.
La Orana Maria Paul Gauguin, 1891Wikimedia Commons
In October 90, Louis and Fanny discovered that the trafficker who had advised them to buy Vailima had not told them the real truth: the 20 hectares of land were still overgrown and the house he had said he would build was just a ramshackle hut…
Fanny, armed with iron clad determination, oversaw the work. She hired Samoans, against the white population’s opinion, to build a house and clear up the estate.
Six months after their arrival, when Louis’ mother joined them, a large house had been built and the grounds of the estate had been cleared.
In 92, Fanny, worn out by her efforts on the estate, showed signs of depression.
Stevenson is so thin and emaciated that he looked like a bundle of sticks in a bag. He was costumed in very dirty striped cotton pyjamas.[...] Instead of buying an estate he would have been better advised to buy a bar of soap! […] �eir lifestyle is worse than that of the natives, compared to their hovel the natives’ huts look like palaces […]Description from two travelling Bostonians
Louis said that I have the spirit of a farmer, not because I love the land and working on it, but because of the idea that it is my land I am working.If I was an artist, the stupid idea of possessing property would have no hold on me. He may well be right. […] When I plant a seed or a root, I plant a bit of my heart with it…Fanny Stevenson, Our Samoan Adventure
In 92, Stevenson got involved in the politics of the Samoa islands.
He supported the Samoans and their king Mataafa against colonial influences.
His activities nearly led to his deportation from the island.
Amidst all of this, Stevenson managed to write Catriona, an historical fiction, A Footnote to History, an ethno-historical account of the Samoa islands, and The Beach of Falesa.
�ey have these large salaries, and they have all the taxes; they have made scarce a foot of road; they have not given a single native a position – all to white men; […] they have forgot they were in Samoa, or that such a thing as Samoans existed, and had eyes and some intelligence.Letter from R.L.S. to Colvin, 5 September 1891
If more days are granted me, they shall be passed where I have found life most pleasant and man most interesting.R.L.S. - In the South Seas
The Beach of FalesaStevenson considered this as one of his best works. It told the tale of white traffickers and the indigenous population of Hawaii. It was considered immoral though and was censored and widely rewritten by his “friends” in the English literary circles.
I am greatly pleased with the illustrations. It is very strange to a South Seayer to see Hawaiian women dressed like Samoans, but I guess that’s all one to you in Middlesex. It’s about the same as if London city men were shown going to the Stock Exchange as pifferari; but no matter, none will sleep worse for it.Letter from R.L.S. to Colvin, January 1893
Mataafa, the legitimate chief of the Samoans who was deported to the Marshall islands in 93.
His friend Stevenson, just before his own death, envisaged releasing him with the help of an Austrian explorer.Writers’ Museum - Edinburgh
Ofu in the Samoa islands
Illustration by Gordon Brown for the first edition of The Beach of Falesa
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Upolu - Rudolf Hellgrewe (1860-1935)
Fanny and a servant
Vailima
Louis, Fanny and her children, Louis’ mother and the Samoans living with them at Vailima
Vailima by J. StrongBeinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University
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Remember that you cannot change ancestral feelings of right and wrong without what is practically soul-murder. Barbarous as the customs may seem, always hear them with patience, always judge them with gentleness, always find in them some seed of good…Letter from R.L.S. to Adelaide Boodle, 14 July 1894
Put away your books, paper and pens: Stevenson is dead. Stevenson is dead and now there is nobody to write for him. Doubtless future generations will marvel at this phenomenon which, for the past five years, the compass of English literature has guided towards a little island in the South Pacific, as if it were his own magnetic pole.�e Speaker
The Stevensons and the orchestra from Katoomba
Yesterday was perhaps the brightest in the annals of Vailima. I got leave from Captain Bickford to have the band of the Katoomba come up…Letter from R.L.S. to Colvin, 12 September 1893
3 December 94, after a morning spent writing, Stevenson died of a stroke at the age of 44.
He was buried, according to his wishes, at the summit of Mount Vaea, overlooking the sea, thanks to the Samoans who cut a path through the jungle to transport his corpse to the burial site.
Fanny and her daughter stayed at Vailima until April 95. She then went on to live and remarry in San Francisco.
She died in February 1914.
�e future is always black to us […] I have a painful difficulty in believing I can ever finish another book, or that the public will ever read it.Letter from R.L.S. to his cousin Bob, 17 June 1894
In June 93 war broke out between supporters of Laupepa, the puppet king installed by the whites and those of Mataafa, the legitimate king.
The deportation of their friend Mataafa and the imprisonment of the chiefs who had supported him deeply affected Fanny, who was recovering from her depression and Louis, who was subject to haemorrhaging once again.
Talolo, cook at Vailima and Samoan chief
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Stevenson wrote under this photo in their album:
“The Samoan members of our family”
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Transport between Vailima and the town of Apia, 5km away, required horses (centre: Robert louis Stevenson)
In early 93, Louis, very much weakened, was forced to dictate his texts to Fanny’s daughter Belle, who became his secretary. He started upon a history of Scotland and also an historical novel, Saint Ives.
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I have seen these chiefs labour valiantly with their own hands upon
the work.�e Road of Gratitude
“Considering the great love of His Excellency, Tusitala in his loving
care of us in tribulation in prison, we have
prepared this splendid gift. It shall never be
muddy. It shall endure forever, this road we
have made.”Quote from Samoan chiefs,
letter from R.L.S. to Colvin, 6 October 1894
In April 94, Louis and Fanny managed to get one of the Samoan chiefs, who was ill, released from prison by putting up bail.
In August, to thank them for their gesture, the freed chiefs and the Samoan people built an extension of the Apia road to serve Vailima.
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Samoan chiefs
One of the last photos of Robert Louis
Stevenson
Works by StevensonNovels
Catriona (1893)
The Ebb-Tide with Lloyd Osbourne (1894)
Short stories
Islands’ Night Entertainments (1893)
Unfinished novels
Weir of Hermiston
Saint Ives
Heathercat
By Fanny Stevenson
Our Samoan Adventure (1955)
MilestonesThe Samoa Islands
The Samoa Islands were divided in two: Western Samoa (integrated into German New-Guinea) and Eastern Samoa (under American control), 1899.
New-Zealand took control of Western Samoa in 1914.
Western Samoa became independent on 1st January 1962.
“The most influential books, and the truest in their influence, are works of fiction. They do not pin the reader to a dogma, which he must afterwards discover to be inexact; they do not teach him a lesson, which he must afterwards unlearn. They repeat, they rearrange, they clarify the lessons of life; they disengage us from ourselves, they constrain us to the acquain-tance of others”
Robert-Louis Stevenson (Books which have influenced me)
The inventor of “travel writing”“The outdoors heals”, “accounts of a successful trip are a fragment of an autobiography”: two statements which mark the beginning of a new approach to travel writing, where personal experience of the outdoors becomes an adventure of the spirit – the adventure of a person transformed, revealed to himself through the eyes of the world and of others. Stevenson, the father of all modern travel writers.
An essay writing genius“The most intelligent comments ever made about literature” (Nabokov)“One of the most beautiful things ever written” (William James)“I placed it above all else – A Chapter on Dreams” (Borgès)Stevenson was above all a genius essay writer who took an entirely new approach to novel writing. Henry James drew his inspiration directly from him in his Art of Fiction, which is often referred to as the founding work of modern literature. And Borgès freely quoted Stevenson in his preface of The Invention of Morel which is considered to mark the intro-duction of the magical realism in South American writing.
A revolutionary novelistTechniques of suspense and progressive description, substitution of impressions for descrip-tions, use of the “point of view” (two in Treasure Island), intertwining of stories, dislocation of characters, splitting the subject (Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde): in the seemingly smooth format of the adventure novel, Stevenson sparked a literary revolution and heralded a new era for novel writing – the adventure was, for Stevenson, in the very format of the novel rather than its subject.When a group of young writers concluded that the French novel writing scene was extremely lacklustre, they created the Nouvelle Revue Française in 1909 and turned immediately towards the examples of Stevenson and Conrad in order to stimulate a new approach…
A singular destinyShowered with praise, considered as a genius by the greatest writers yet ignored for decades by arrogant critics who tended to pigeonhole Stevenson’s works for children’s bookshelves: his life and works followed a very singular destiny.Henry James, Jorge Luis Borgès, Marcel Schwob, Antonin Artaud, Stéphane Mallarmé, Marcel Proust, W.B. Yeats, Herman Hesse, Bertold Brecht, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Pierre MacOrlan, John Steinbeck, Graham Greene, Italo Calvino, Angelica Carter, JMG Le Clézio, Nicolas Bouvier, Alvaro Mutis, Antonio Tabucchi: the list of writers who have been inspired in some way by the work of Stevenson is long.His work seems to be communicating a message, a message that this eternal bohemian com-municates to writers who are too frequently overlooked by the critics…
Michel Le Bris, author, founder and director of the Étonnants Voyageurs festival in Saint-Malo, specialist on R.-L. Stevenson. Michel Le Bris accompanied the preparation of this exhibition and put forward these four themes as an introduction to the Scottish writer and his works.
1885 – 1887Haemorrhages, fevers, bronchitis… Wrote essays and novels unceasingly.Met Henry James.Publication in 85 of Prince Otto, The Dynamiter (novel) and A Child’s Garden of Verses (poems).Redaction and publication in 86 of The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Kidnapped!Publication in 87 of The Merry men and Other Tales (short stories).
8 May 1887Death of Stevenson’s father, Thomas Stevenson.
21 August 1887Departure of the Stevenson family for America.
September 1887Arrival in New York.He found that he had become famous in America.A publisher ordered a series of essays.
October 1887Installation on the banks of Lake Saranac, in the Adirondack mountains. Began writing The Master of Ballantrae.
April – June 1888Return to New York.Proposal by Mac Clure of $15,000 for a series of travel letters. Publication of The Black Arrow.
28 June 1888 – 24 January 1889Departure from San Francisco for the South Seas aboard the Casco with Fanny, Lloyd, his mother and 6 crew members.Called into the Marquesas Islands, Tuamotu, Tahiti, Hawaii.
24 January 1889 - 24 June 1889Stay in Hawaii.End of redaction and publication of The Master of Ballantrae.Publication of The Wrong Box (written with Lloyd Osbourne).
24 June 1889 – February 1890Voyage on the merchant vessel Equator.Stopovers in Butaritari and Apemama where he began to work on The Wrecker.
December 1889 Arrived in Apia, capital of Upolu a Samoan island.Bought an abandoned estate: Vailima.
February - April 1890Travelled through the Samoan islands to Sydney aboard a merchant vessel.In Sydney, Stevenson fell ill.
April - August 1890Boarded an old cargo ship, the Janet Nicholl, to return to the warmth of the tropics.Voyage to the Samoan Islands, Gilbert, Marshall, New Caledonia before returning to Sydney where he fell ill yet again: he could no longer leave the South Seas…
October 1890Difficult beginnings in Vailima where everything had to be built from scratch.
January - May 1891Fanny cleared, burned, dug, planted and oversaw the construction of a new, large house.Publication of The South Seas.
1892Political engagement for the Samoans against the Germans, English and Americans in the sector. Nearly banished from the island.
Writing of A Footnote to history, The Beach of Falesa and Catriona. Publication of The Wrecker, A Footnote to History and Across the Plains (his trip across America by train in 1879).
January 1893Severely affected by the flu epidemic which ravaged the island.
Mid-February 1893Attempted to return to Sydney where he fell ill immediately upon his arrival, forcing him to return home.
April 1893Fanny suffered from depression.Publication of Island Night Entertainment.
End June 1893War broke out in the islands. Mataafa, chief of the rebels and Stevenson’s friend was deported to the Marshall Islands.
August 1893Collapsed further to severe haemorrhages.
September 1893Left for Hawaii to attempt a cure but was forced to return to Vailima.Publication of Catriona.
1894Exhausted, he continued to write Saint Ives, an historical novel and Weir of Hermiston.Publication of The Ebb Tide.
3 December 1894Stevenson died further to a stroke.He was buried the next day on the summit of Mount Vaea overlooking the sea, according to his last wishes.
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Work on the Bell Rock lighthouse, built by Stevenson’s grandfather Wikimedia Commons
MilestonesUnited Kingdom
Economic boom in the Victorian era 1850-1870.
The English week (stopping work on Saturday at midday) spread throughout the United Kingdom.
Wages increased by 25 to 30% between 1850 and 1875.
The majority of the population now lived in towns and cities.
The number of domestic servants, the keystone to the notion of bourgeoisie, rose from 840 000 to 1.3 million between 1851 and 1871.
Literature
Publication of Ninety-Three, Victor Hugo, 1870.
Publication of Around the World in 80 Days, Jules Verne, 1870.
Death of Alexandre Dumas senior, 1870.
Works by StevensonThe Philosophy of Umbrellas (1871)
Roads (1873-1874)
Victor Hugo’s Romances (1873-1874)
On the enjoyment of unpleasant places (1873-1874)
Edinburgh: picturesque notes (1878)
The Education of an Engineer (1888)
The ages of 17 and 21, in order to further his scientific studies, Stevenson was sent by his father on inspection tours along the Scottish coastlines and islands.
The eccentric student with long hair shone by his absence.
In 1871, he decided that he would not become an engineer because he wanted to devote his life to literature. In order to make this easier on his father, he signed up to study law.
In 1870, along with some fellow students, Stevenson created a university review… and began to frequent local bars.
The growing family conflict reached a flash point in 73 when his father discovered the LJR*, a club founded with his cousin Bob with a tenet of ‘disregard everything our parents taught us’, through which Stevenson communicated his rebellion against religious hypocrisy and the news that he declared himself to be an atheist. In 1873, Stevenson met Sidney Colvin, a Professor at Cambridge, who introduced him to the literary environment and published several of his essays.* Liberty Justice Reverence
In 75, at the age of 25, Stevenson qualified as a lawyer but quickly abandoned this profession after early failures at the bar.
I had already my own private determination to be an author; I loved the art of words and the appearances of life; and travelers, and headers, and rubble, and polished ashlar, and pierres perdues, and even the thrilling question of the string-course, interested me only (if they interested me at all) as properties for some possible romance or as words to add to my vocabulary.R.L.S. - �e Education of an Engineer
Hence my acquaintance was of what would be called a very low order. […] I was the companion of seamen, chimney sweeps and thieves; my circle was being continually changed by the action of the police magistrate. […]I do not believe these days were among the least happy I have spent. I was distinctly petted and respected; the women were most gentle and kind to me. I might have left all my money for a month and they would have returned every farthing of it.R.L.S. - Memoirs of Himself
We have had an awful scene. All that my father had to say has been put forth – not that it was anything new; only it is the devil to hear. O dear God, I don’t know what to do – the world goes hopelessly round about me – there is no more possibility of doing, living, being anything but a beast and there’s the end of it…I am killing my father.Letter from R.L.S. to Fanny Sitwell, 22 September 1873
“Jink” was a word of our own; for we had a language compounded of many slangs and languages in which we expressed indifferently common things that had already a much better name in English, and the new or half understood ideas for which there were no names, or none with which we were acquainted. As a rule of conduct, “Jink” consisted in doing the most absurd acts for the sake of their absurdity and the consequent laughter.R.L.S. - Graham Balfour, �e life of Robert Louis Stevenson
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Edinburgh in 1890
Robert Lewis and his father Thomas
Portrait of Victor Hugo by Félix Nadar
Illustration of Stevenson’s “Edinburgh: Picturesque Notes” by W. E. Lockhart – 1878
Stevenson’s student notebook
13 November 1850Birth of Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson in Edinburgh into an upper-middle class Presbyterian family. His father, Thomas, was an internationally acclaimed lighthouse manufacturer.He inherited his fragile health from his mother, Margaret Balfour.Stevenson spent most of his childhood in his bedroom.
1864He wrote his first novel, The Plague Cellar at the age of 14.
1867 - 1871A student of “Science and technology” but his under-lying dream was to be an author.A bohemian lifestyle in the rougher districts of Edinburgh.
March 1871He gave up his scientific studies and signed up to read law. This was a terrible deception for his father…
January 1873He declared that he was atheist. Relations with his parents deteriorated seriously.
1873 – 1874Publication of his first essays, which met with praise from critics.
Summer 1875Passed his law exams and became a lawyer. Visit to Barbizon with his cousin Bob and his painter friends.
Autumn 1875Failure of his first cases at the bar. He turned his back on a legal profession.
End August 1876Canoe trip along the canals
and rivers of Belgium and Northern France.At Grez-sur-Loing he met and fell in love with Fanny Osbourne (married, mother of two children).
1876 – 1877A bohemian lifestyle between England and France, where he met up with Fanny again.
May 1878Publication of An Inland Voyage.
15 August 1878Departure of Fanny and her children for America.
September 1878Visit to Monastier-sur-Gazeille and then a walking tour across the Cévennes.
May 1879Publication of Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes.
7 August 1879 - 30 August 1879Departure for California, behind his parents’ back. Voyage in a ship with emigrants and then by train across the American continent.
August 1879 – April 1880Stayed in California, penniless, ill (pleurisy, malaria, serious haemorrhages…) and cut off by his family and friends who disapproved of this trip.He waited for Fanny to get her divorce.
April 1880His parents, shocked by his state of health, accepted his marriage.
May – July 1880Marriage 19 May.
“Honeymoon” in an abandoned mine, in Silverado.
29 July 1880Louis and Fanny travelled to Scotland.
Summer 1880Summer in the Highlands.
Autumn 1880 - Winter 1881Cure in Davos, Switzerland for his health.
April - May 1881Return to Edinburgh, via Paris and Barbizon.
Summer 1881Summer in the Highlands.He wrote the first 15 chapters of Treasure Island.
Winter 1881-1882Second winter in Davos.Completion of Treasure Island.
October - December 1882Set up home in the south of France near to Marseille.Return of the haemorrhages.
March 1883Moved to Hyères, Chalet “La Solitude”.Publication of his first novel Treasure Island.
January 1884Publication of The Silverado Squatters.
June 1884In very poor health, he retur-ned to England.
Autumn 1884Installation in Bournemouth, south of England.
Biographical milestones
Dates of publication of his major works
1878 An Inland Voyage
1879 Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes
1881 Virginibus Puerisque (Collection of essays)
1882 Familiar Studies of Men and Books (Collection of essays)
1882 New Arabian Nights
1883 Treasure Island
1884 The Silverado Squatters
1885 The Dynamiter
1885 Prince Otto
1885 A Child’s Garden of Verses (Poem)
1886 The Strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
1886 Kidnapped!
1887 The Merry Men and other tales
1887 Underwoods (Poem)
1888 The Black Arrow
1889 The Master of Ballantrae
1889 The Wrong Box, written in collaboration with Lloyd Osbourne
1890 The South Seas: A Record of Three Cruises
1892 The Beach of Falesa
1892 A Footnote to History: Eight Years of Troubles in Samoa
1892 The Wrecker, written in collaboration with Lloyd Osbourne
1892 Across the Plains
1893 Catriona
1893 Island Night Entertainment
1894 The Ebb-Tide
1894 St Ives (Unfinished)
1894 Heathercat (Unfinished)
1894 Weir of Hermiston (Unfinished)
BibliographyThe bibliography presents the works in French which were used as source documents for the original exhibition. The related work by R.L. Stevenson (where applicable) is given in italics at the end of each reference.
W o r k s b y S t e v e n s o n
Letters
Lettres du vagabond: correspondance 1 - septembre 1854 - août 1887, (A collection of letters established and presented
by Michel Le Bris), Éditions NiL, 1994Lettres des mers du sud: correspondance 2 - août 1887 - décembre 1894, (A collection of letters established and
presented by Michel Le Bris), Éditions NiL, 1995
Travels writing
À travers l’Écosse. Éditions Complexe, 1992L’appel de la route (travel writing collection). Grande Bibliothèque Payot, 1994Dans les mers du Sud. Gallimard, 1983 (In the South Seas)La route de Silverado. (L’émigrant amateur, Les squatters de Silverado…). Paris, Phébus, rééd Petite Bibliothèque Payot, 2000 (The Amateur Emigrant, The Silverado Squatters)Voyage avec un âne à travers les Cévennes. Diverses éditions : Mirandole, Butte aux Cailles, UGE, Encre… (Travels with a Don-key in the Cevennes)Journal de route en Cévennes. Privat, 2002Voyage sur les canaux et les rivières. Encre, 1985 (An Inland Voyage)En canoë sur les rivières du nord. Actes Sud, 1999 (An Inland Voyage)
Essays
Une apologie des oisifs suivi de Causerie et causeurs. Allia, 2001 (An Apology for Idlers)Charles d’Orléans (included in Familiar Studies of Men and Books). Le Promeneur, 1992L’esprit d’aventure. Phébus, 1994 (Walking Tours)Essais sur l’art de la fiction. Petite Bibliothèque Payot, 1992La Forêt au trésor. Fontainebleau. Pôles d’images, 2003Mendiants. Sillage, 2006Virginibus Puerisque. Allia, 2003
Poetry
Chants du voyage. Les Belles Lettres, 1999 (Songs of Travel and Other Verses)Jardin de poèmes pour un enfant. Hachette, 1992 (A Child’s Garden of Verses)
Short stories
Intégrale des nouvelles 1, edition established and presented by Michel Le Bris . Phébus, 2001Intégrale des nouvelles 2, edition established and presented by Michel Le Bris . Éditions Phébus, 2001Une ancienne chanson. Éditions Complexe, 1994 (An old Song)Ceux de Falesa. La Table Ronde, 1990 (The Beach of Falesa)Le Club du suicide (Included in New Arabian Nights). Gallimard, 2003 (The Suicide Club)Contes noirs. LGF, 1992Le diable dans la bouteille. Various editions: Gallimard, Bordas… (The Bottle Imp)Le diamant du Rajah (Included in New Arabian Nights). Various editions: Ombres, Gallimard… Le dynamiteur (Included in New Arabian Nights), POL (The Dynamiter)Fables. Various editions: Rivages, Corti…Les gais compagnons. Chimères, 2003 (The Merry Men and Other Tales)Les gais lurons. Éditions d’Aujourd’hui, 1975Janet la revenante et autres nouvelles écossaises. Éditions Complexe, 1992 (Thrawn Janet)La magicienne. Rivages, 1991 (The Enchanteress)Les nouvelles Mille et Une Nuits. Phébus (3 vol.) Points-Seuil (New Arabian Nights)Olalla. Various editions: EJL, Rivages, Corti…Olalla des montagnes et autres contes noirs. Mercure de France, 2006Veillées d’Océanie. Belles Lettres, 2001 (Island Nights’ Entertainment)Will du moulin. Allia, 1997 (Will O’the Mill)
Albums
Mon ombre. Flammarion Père Castor, 1992 (My Shadow)Mattoti Le pavillon sur la dune. Vertige Graphic, 1992L’île au trésor. Auzou Philippe Eds, 2004Wyeth, L’île au trésor. Duculot, 1994 (Treasure Island: a story of the Spanish Main)
Novels
Œuvres. Robert Laffont, collection “Bouquins”, 2002Les aventures de David Balfour (containing Kidnapped! and Catriona). Le Serpent à plumes, 2006 (The Adventures of David Balfour)Le creux de la vague. Flammarion, 1993 (The Ebb-Tide)L’étrange cas du Docteur Jekyll et de Mr. Hyde. Various editions: Gallimard, Bordas, Flammarion, Duculot, Press-Pockett, LGF, Hachette, UGE… (The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde)La flèche noire. Une histoire de la guerre des Deux-Roses. Phébus, 1999 (The Black Arrow)Hermiston, le juge pendeur. UGE, 1987 (Weir of Hermiston)Le creux des sorcières, Hachette, 1995 (new translation of Weir of Hermiston)L’île au trésor. Various editions: Actes Sud, Lito, Press-Pockett, Dargaud, Aubier, Armand Colin, Bordas, Laffont, Hachette, Gallimard… (Treasure Island)Le maître de Ballantrae. Diverses éditions : POL. (Préface de Jean Echenoz) Flammarion, Gallimard… (The Master of Ballantrae)Les mésaventures de John Nicholson. Ombres, 2000 (The Misadventures of John Nicholson)Un mort encombrant. Hachette, 2000 (The Wrong Box)Le reflux. Albin-Michel, 1991 (The Ebb-Tide)Le trafiquant d’épaves (written with Lloyd Osbourne) . Phébus, 2005 (The Wrecker)Le secret de l’épave. Ancre de marine, 1991 (abridged version of The Wrecker)
Ethno-historical document
Les Pleurs de Laupepa. En marge de l’histoire, huit années de troubles aux Samoa. Payot, 1995 (A Footnote to History: Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa)
W o r k s b y F a n n y S t e v e n s o n
Fanny et Robert Louis Stevenson, Notre aventure aux Samoa. Phébus, 1994 (Our Samoan Adventure)Fanny Stevenson, Le voyage de la Janet Nicholl. Payot/Voyageur, 1994 (The Cruise of the Janet Nichol among the South Seas Islands)
W o r k s a b o u t S t e v e n s o n
Michel Le Bris, Robert Louis Stevenson : Les années bohémiennes (biographie tome 1). Éditions NiL, 1994Alexandra Lapierre, Fanny Stevenson entre passion et liberté. Robert Laffont, 1993, (Fanny Stevenson: A romance of Destiny)Les Cahiers de l’Herne, n° 66, dirigé par Michel Le Bris. 1995Michel Le Bris, Une amitié littéraire : Henry James Robert Louis Stevenson (Correspondence and texts). Petite Bibliothèque Payot, 1994Michel Le Bris, La Porte d’Or. Grasset, 1986Michel Le Bris, Pour saluer Stevenson. Flammarion, 2000
Association
Sur le chemin de Robert Louis Stevenson48220 Le Pont-de-Montvert – France
Tel: +33 (0)4 66 45 86 31
www.chemin-stevenson.org