Robert Louis Stevenson in Samoa

by Joseph Farrell

Shortlised for the Saltire Society Non Fiction Book of the Year Award Almost every adult and child is familiar with his Treasure Island , but few know that Robert Louis Stevenson lived out his last years on an equally remote island, which was squabbled over by colonial powers much as Captain Flint's treasure was contested by the mongrel crew of the Hispaniola. In 1890 Stevenson settled in Upolu, an island in Samoa, after two years sailing round the South Pacific. He was given a Samoan name and became a fierce critic of the interference of Germany, Britain and the U.S.A. in Samoan affairs - a stance that earned him Oscar Wilde's sneers, and brought him into conflict with the Colonial Office, who regarded him as a menace and even threatened him with expulsion from the island. Joseph Farrell's pioneering study of Stevenson's twilight years stands apart from previous biographies by giving as much weight to the Samoa and the Samoans - their culture, their manners, their history - as to the life and work of the man himself. For it is only by examining the full complexity of Samoa and the political situation it faced as the nineteenth century gave way to the twentieth, that Stevenson's lasting and generous contribution to its cause can be appreciated.

Genres: Biography

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2017

About the author

Joseph Farrell is emeritus Professor of Italian at the University of Strathclyde. He is author of a biography of Dario Fo and has translated several Italian playwrights in addition to various novels.

Reviews

[Jim]

Joseph Farrell's Robert Louis Stevenson in Samoa is a superb literary biography of Robert Louis Stevenson's last years in the South Pacific. Ever since I've read RLS's Vailima Letters, I have been fascinated by how the author, in his last few years, managed to write some 700,000 words and produce some of his best works -- works that were influenced by his exposure to a culture vastly different from that of his native Scotland.

Farrell's book is a keeper, one that I will undoubtedly refer to again as I continue to read about the last phase of the author's life. Talking about The Ebb Tide, he writes:

Perhaps at this sage in his life, R.L.S. had renounced all effort at providing neat, rational conclusions and was more taken by the inexplicable mysteriousness of human conduct and the impulses which were already in his lifetime being identified as subconscious.

[Lisa]

The author of this lively bio about Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) discovered his adventure stories as I did, in childhood:

Growing up in Scotland for my generation meant growing up with Robert Louis Stevenson. It was not that we were all avid readers, although many of us were, but the B.B.C. did adaptations of his fiction on radio and T.V., and a series of “classic comics” circulated and were keenly read and swopped. Treasure Island and Kidnapped were part of our lives, in the same way, I suppose, as social media is for today’s younger generation. At least that was the case for boys. I was surprised when working on this book to be told by female friends that he was regarded as a boys’ writer, not someone for them. (p.13)

Huh? Boys’ writer?? I loved Treasure Island!

Whatever about any of that, feminists will be pleased to see that Farrell gives RLS’s much maligned wife Fanny a fair go. She was an American and a divorcee and you only need to know about Edward VIII and Mrs Simpson in the 20th century to know that those were two fatal ticks against any woman of the 19th century in Britain. And #OMGShockHorror! she was ten years older than him. So, yes, she had a hard time from some unforgiving quarters while RLS was alive, and she got a predictably bad press when the bios were written after his death.

But the fact is that RLS was smitten....

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2017/08/09/r...