Untitled (Cabin of the Casco), P. 36

Category

Museums & Galleries Item

Item no

19350

Title

p. 36, Untitled (Cabin of the Casco)

Description

King Kalakaua of Hawaii sits in the cabin of the Casco wearing a light coloured suit and holding a straw boater. To his right is Robert Louis Stevenson and his wife Fanny. Fanny is wearing a floral dress and black lace gloves. On the floor sits Lloyd Osbourne looking up towards Mrs Margaret Stevenson. Mrs Stevenson has a long dark dress and a white bonnet with a long veil at the back.

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

Unknown

Date

1889

Size

16.4 x 22.1 cm

Type

Photograph

Location

Writers' Museum

This photograph was taken on the Casco when it was docked in Honolulu on the 1st February 1889.

Margaret Stevenson (nee Balfour) was Robert Louis Stevenson's mother. Lloyd Osbourne was Fanny Stevenson's son and Robert Louis Stevenson's step-son. David Kalakaua (1836-1891) was the last king of Hawaii from 1874-1891. He is sometimes referred to as The Merrie Monarch.

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). From the late 1880s, Stevenson stayed in the South Pacific with his family on his own estate in Vailima in Samoa. 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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Related subjects

Clothing and dress > Accessories > Hats

Clothing and dress > Garments > Dresses

People > Entertainment and sports > Authors

People > Politics and government > Kings

Places > North America > Hawaii

Transport > Water > Boats

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Untitled (Cabin of the Casco), p. 36