
How Robert Louis Stevenson came to live, die, and be buried in Samoa (2018) - drjohnson
https://www.weeklystandard.com/micah-mattix/wide-and-starry-sky
======
trgn
When living there, Stevenson wrote the beach of Falesa, a thriller about the
rivalry between the white protagonist, a newcomer copra trader, and a colonial
of the old guard who has become somewhat of a cult leader on the island.

It's a short read, but exciting, and still feels very modern. There's a
touching love story in the background between the trader and his native wife,
that feels fresh and open-minded and gives the story more color than for
example the oppressive sickness and despair of the more famous Heart of
Darkness, which is also a novella that essentially develops the same themes.

I'd recommend Stevenson. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hide is still a great mystery, ideal
for that lazy afternoon on the beach.

~~~
kerng
I also enjoy his books, especially Treasure Island is a book I go back and
read again once in a while.

Funny enough, I just realized I hardly know anything about the author, reading
up about his life now.

~~~
marvindanig
For those who don't know Treasure Island is public domain and you can read it
right now for free on web!

1\. [https://bubblin.io/cover/treasure-island-by-robert-louis-
ste...](https://bubblin.io/cover/treasure-island-by-robert-louis-
stevenson#frontmatter)

2\.
[https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/120](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/120)

------
interfixus
Required trivia: In Samoa, Stevenson eventually donated his birthday to
someone with better use for it:

[http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/06/i-have-now-no-
further-u...](http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/06/i-have-now-no-further-use-
for-birthday.html)

------
mc32
I found it interesting that many early to mid XX century American English and
Continental authors of renown admired Stevenson (who enjoyed some fame while
alive) but was not a favorite of literary critics by a long shot, so much so
he was basically “delisted” in the 70s from the Oxford Anthology of English
Literature, but has since enjoyed a rebound.

Very interesting life given his bouts with poor health. Made the most of it.

~~~
adfm
He sure did have an interesting life. He came out to California to marry and
ended up staying a while. There’s a state park just north of San Francisco
named after him.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Louis_Stevenson_State...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Louis_Stevenson_State_Park)

------
ilamont
Kind of depressing that the book only has one reader review and ranks 1.6
million on the U.S. Amazon store, which means it's barely selling (I'm a
publisher; that number translates to just a few copies per month at most).
That's despite a boatload of editorial reviews like the featured article.

It could be because the retail hardcover and Kindle prices are over $30 (!)
but I am also wondering if the market for biographies is completely saturated,
especially by big books by marquee authors. I've recently read the Da Vinci
and Einstein bios by Walter Isaacson, both of which took ages to get through.
There's just not much time to read other stuff, like the Carreyou bio of
Theranos I've been eyeing at the library.

Incidentally, the Kindle edition of the Stevenson biography is currently on
sale for $3.99 on the U.S. Amazon store. I bought it based on this review.

------
mark_l_watson
My Dad named our first nice sailboat Vailima, named after Stevenson's house. I
means, if I remember correctly, 'house on 5 rivers.'

------
Latteland
The weekly standard is an 'interesting' source. Did you also notice the
featured article, [https://www.weeklystandard.com/holmes-lybrand/fact-check-
was...](https://www.weeklystandard.com/holmes-lybrand/fact-check-was-the-
recent-california-fire-started-by-the-u-s-government-using-space-lasers).

------
pmoriarty
One of the most fascinating things I've read by Stevenson was his description
of his creative process, the success of which he attributed to the "little
people" in his dreams, or what he called his "Brownies".

Referring to himself in the third person, Stevenson writes:

 _" This honest fellow had long been in the custom of setting himself to sleep
with tales, and so had his father before him; but these were irresponsible
inventions, told for the teller's pleasure, with no eye to the crass public or
the thwart reviewer: tales where a thread might be dropped, or one adventure
quitted for another, on fancy's least suggestion. So that the little people
who manage man's internal theatre had not as yet received a very rigorous
training; and played upon their stage like children who should have slipped
into the house and found it empty, rather than like drilled actors performing
a set piece to a huge hall of faces._

 _" But presently my dreamer began to turn his former amusement of story-
telling to (what is called) account; by which I mean that he began to write
and sell his tales. Here was he, and here were the little people who did that
part of his business, in quite new conditions._

 _" The stories must now be trimmed and pared and set upon all fours, they
must run from a beginning to an end and fit (after a manner) with the laws of
life; the pleasure, in one word, had become a business; and that not only for
the dreamer, but for the little people of his theatre. These understood the
change as well as he. When he lay down to prepare himself for sleep, he no
longer sought amusement, but printable and profitable tales; and after he had
dozed off in his box-seat, his little people continued their evolutions with
the same mercantile designs._

 _" All other forms of dream deserted him but two: he still occasionally reads
the most delightful books, he still visits at times the most delightful
places; and it is perhaps worthy of note that to these same places, and to one
in particular, he returns at intervals of months and years, finding new field-
paths, visiting new neighbours, beholding that happy valley under new effects
of noon and dawn and sunset. But all the rest of the family of visions is
quite lost to him: the common, mangled version of yesterday's affairs, the
raw-head-and-bloody-bones nightmare, rumoured to be the child of toasted
cheese -- these and their like are gone; and, for the most part, whether awake
or asleep, he is simply occupied -- he or his little people -- in consciously
making stories for the market._

 _" This dreamer (like many other persons) has encountered some trifling
vicissitudes of fortune. When the bank begins to send letters and the butcher
to linger at the back gate, he sets to belabouring his brains after a story,
for that is his readiest money-winner; and, behold! at once the little people
begin to bestir themselves in the same quest, and labour all night long, and
all night long set before him truncheons of tales upon their lighted theatre._

 _" No fear of his being frightened now; the flying heart and the frozen scalp
are things by-gone; applause, growing applause, growing interest, growing
exultation in his own cleverness (for he takes all the credit), and at last a
jubilant leap to wakefulness, with the cry, "I have it, that'll do!" upon his
lips: with such and similar emotions he sits at these nocturnal dramas, with
such outbreaks, like Claudius in the play, he scatters the performance in the
midst._

 _" Often enough the waking is a disappointment: he has been too deep asleep,
as I explain the thing; drowsiness has gained his little people, they have
gone stumbling and maundering through their parts; and the play, to the
awakened mind, is seen to be a tissue of absurdities. And yet how often have
these sleepless Brownies done him honest service, and given him, as he sat
idly taking his pleasure in the boxes, better tales than he could fashion for
himself."_

...

 _" Who are they, then? and who is the dreamer?_

 _" Well, as regards the dreamer, I can answer that, for he is no less a
person than myself; -- as I might have told you from the beginning, only that
the critics murmur over my consistent egotism; -- and as I am positively
forced to tell you now, or I could advance but little farther with my story._

 _" And for the Little People, what shall I say they are but just my Brownies,
God bless them! who do one-half my work for me while I am fast asleep, and in
all human likelihood, do the rest for me as well, when I am wide awake and
fondly suppose I do it for myself. That part which is done while I am sleeping
is the Brownies' part beyond contention; but that which is done when I am up
and about is by no means necessarily mine, since all goes to show the Brownies
have a hand in it even then."_

[http://www.worlddreambank.org/S/STEVBROW.HTM](http://www.worlddreambank.org/S/STEVBROW.HTM)

~~~
mirimir
Although "Brownies" is rather cringe-worthy, I routinely write out problems
just before going to sleep, and often awake with solutions.

~~~
pmoriarty
Why do you think it's cringeworthy?

Stevenson was likely referring to this:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownie_%28folklore%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownie_%28folklore%29)

 _" A brownie or broonie (Scots), also known as a brùnaidh or gruagach
(Scottish Gaelic), is a household spirit from British folklore that is said to
come out at night while the owners of the house are asleep and perform various
chores and farming tasks."_

That appears to be pretty unobjectionable to me.

~~~
mirimir
Thanks. Although I still wonder about the origin.

------
mirimir
FYI: Moore (1943) Defoe, Stevenson, and the Pirates. [https://sci-
hub.tw/https://www.jstor.org/stable/2871539](https://sci-
hub.tw/https://www.jstor.org/stable/2871539)

------
nevster
I just happen to be reading Treasure Island for the first time. Well worth a
read!

