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In the South Seas

Name: In the South Seas
Author: Robert Louis Stevenson
ISBN: 9780140434361

by Robert Louis Stevenson, Neil Rennie (Noted by), Neil Rennie

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Overview

In the South Seas records Stevenson's travels with his wife Fanny and their family in the Marquesas, the Paumotus and the Gilbert Islands during 1888-9. Originally drafted in journal form while Stevenson travelled, it was then ambitiously rewritten to describe the islands and islanders as well as Stevenson's own personal experiences. These revisions continued when Stevenson settled on the Samoan island where he died in 1894, and In the South Seas was published posthumously in 1896. Its combination of personal anecdote and historical account, of autobiography and anthropology, of Stevenson and South Sea islands, has a particular charm.

Stevenson's observations on his travels throughout the South Seas, published in 1896.

Synopsis

This is the story of Stevenson's Pacific travels on the Casco and the Equator. It is a beautifully observed account of island peoples and their life; it is also the story of the beginning of his love affair with the Pacific, and of his growing commitment to the island cause. In the South Seas has been described as "the most solid of Stevenson's general writings;" it is certainly his least known book as well as a unique gem of Pacific literature, and richly deserves to be rediscovered.

About the Author, Robert Louis Stevenson

The Victorian poet and novelist Robert Louis Stevenson once said, "Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant." The author of the magical A Child's Garden of Verses and the chilling The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Stevenson indeed planted powerful literary seeds -- that grew into undisputed classics.