"Diplomatic Relations; or Donat Himself", P.15

Category

Museums & Galleries Item

Item no

19287

Title

p.15, Diplomatic relations; or Donat himself in our kitchen

Description

Margaret, Fanny and Robert Louis Stevenson are gathered round a stove outdoors with Francois Donat-Rimarau. Franny is sitting on the ground putting something in the oven. Trees can be seen in the background.

The image is from the photograph album entitled 'The Cruise of the Casco' of Robert Louis Stevenson's travels around Hawaii and French Polynesia in 1888.

Artist / maker

Osbourne, Lloyd

Date

1888

Size

9.5 x 13.6 cm

Type

Photograph

Location

Writers' Museum

Francois Donat-Rimarau was the half-French, half-Tahitian acting French Vice-Resident (or interior minister) of the Paumotus Islands. He came to visit the Stevensons as soon as the Casco arrived at Fakarava in September 1888.

The Stevensons were in Fakarava from 9th to 25th September, and stayed in a traditional platform house that Taniera Mahinui had found for them to stay in. Stevenson writes of the house on its platform, and how they found an old rusty stove lying unused under the platform. They removed the stove and restored it to use outside the house as a kitchen.

The Paumotus Islands are part of the Tuamotu-Paumotu group of atolls in French Polynesia in the Pacific Ocean. Fakarava is the second largest of the atoll and has the best harbour of the group.

Born in Edinburgh on 13th November 1850, Robert Louis Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, playwright and travel writer. Although he was plagued by ill health all his life, he was extraordinarily well-travelled, visiting Europe, America and the South Seas. He married American born Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne in 1880 and is best-known for works like Treasure Island (1883), Kidnapped and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (both 1886).

Robert Louis Stevenson spent the latter years of his life both travelling and resident in the Pacific. The family chartered the 'Casco' in San Francisco and spent several weeks travelling in French Polynesia, including an extended stay in Tahiti where Stevenson recovered from a bout of illness. After this the Stevenson group continued to Honolulu, Hawaii, where they landed in January 1889. In the summer of 1889 Stevenson embarked on a six month voyage through the Gilbert Islands to Samoa aboard the 'Equator'. It was here that Stevenson bought an estate he named Vailima. After another voyage, aboard the trading steamer the 'Janet Nicoll', Stevenson returned to Vailima. He died here on the 3rd December 1894 of a brain haemorrhage at the age of 44, leaving what many consider his best work, Weir of Hermiston (1896) unfinished.

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"Diplomatic relations; or Donat himself", p.15