Suwarrow Island, private island

Category

Museums & Galleries Item

Item no

19793

Title

p. 30, Suwarrow Island, private island belonging to Henderson and Macfarlane

Description

The view of a white wooden house with a veranda is seen through a line of palm trees. A man and woman dressed in white are standing beside the building and a fence can be seen to the left of them.

Artist / maker

Osbourne, Lloyd

Date

1890

Size

18 x 22.6 cm

Type

Photograph

Location

Writers' Museum

Suwarrow Island (also called Suvorov) is one of the 15 Cook Islands situated in the South Pacific Ocean. It was visited by the Stevensons on the 13th May 1890 and it was then a private island belonging to the firm of Henderson and MacFarlane.

On 11th April 1890 Robert Louis Stevenson his wife Fanny and her son Lloyd Osbourne set off aboard the steamer Janet Nicoll from Sydney for a three-month trading voyage through the Pacific. The ship was under charter to Messrs Henderson and Macfarlane of Auckland, a well known trading firm The travelled through the Cook, Gilbert, Ellice and Marshall Islands, arriving at Noumea, New Caledonia on the 26th July.

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.

Exhibitions with this item

Other views of this item

Related images

Related subjects

Homes > Residential buildings > Houses

People > Adults > Men

People > Adults > Women

Places > Oceania > Cook Islands

Plants > Trees > Palms

Read how our collections have inspired people taking part in events, visits and community groups. Use the slider or navigation arrows to see more responses.