Feast at the Opening of the Road of the Loving Hearts

Category

Museums & Galleries Item

Item no

19740

Title

p. 47b, Feast (at Vailima) for the opening of the road of the Loving Hearts (7 October 1894)

Description

People line either side of the veranda at Vailima on Samoa. On the house side as well as native Samoans sit Fanny and Robert Louis Stevenson; Lloyd Osbourne; Austin Strong and Margaret Stevenson. Some Samoan women on the right have kava bowls in front of them.

Artist / maker

Unknown

Date

1889

Size

14.5 x 20 cm

Type

Photograph

Location

Writers' Museum

Stevenson had become increasingly involved in Samoan politics, and in the civil war of July 1893 he supported Mataafa who was defeated and exiled. Stevenson secured the release of the other chiefs and, as a token of their gratitude, they built a road leading to Vailima. The feast was given on 7th October 1894 in celebration of the completion.

The Samoan Islands are located in the South Pacific and lie halfway between Hawaii and Australia. The capital Apia, is situated on Upolu one of the largest of the 10 islands.

Margaret Stevenson (nee Balfour) was Robert Louis Stevenson's mother. Fanny (nee Vandegrift) was his wife, who is pictured here with Lloyd; her son from her first marriage to Sam Osbourne and Austin her grandson.

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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People > Entertainment and sports > Authors

Places > Oceania > Samoa

Sport and leisure > Activities > Eating and drinking

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Feast at the opening of the road of the Loving Hearts