"Mr. Stevenson's house in Sandwich Islands", p. 43

Category

Museums & Galleries Item

Item no

19371

Title

p. 43, Mr. Stevenson's house in Sandwich Islands

Description

Robert Louis Stevenson and his family stand in the garden outside is bungalow in the Sandwich Islands. Stevenson is dressed all in white with a tartan tie. To his right Margaret Stevenson, his mother, is sitting in a chair. Against the fence surrounding the house stand Fanny Stevenson, Lloyd Osbourne and Belle Strong. Ah Fu, their Chinese cook, is crouching on the grass watering it with a hose pipe. The bungalow is covered with creeping plants and trees frame either side of the image.

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

18.3 x 25.3 cm

Type

Photograph

Location

Writers' Museum

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

Ah Fu, became Robert Louis Stevenson's cook on the Casco in August 1888. He replaced the previous cook who had been drunk ashore and placed in jail. Ah Fu was from China, but had been marooned on Hiva Oa as a boy. He remained with the Stevenson's until 1890 when he returned to China.

The Hawaiian Islands were known as the Sandwich Islands until the late 19th century. Hawaii is a state of the United States of America, located in the central Pacific Ocean. It became part of the Union in 1959, making it the 50th state. Its capital is Honolulu on the island of Oahu. When Stevenson visited Hawaii it was an independent kingdom. The 1887 Constitution of the Kingdom of Hawaii however stripped the Hawaiian monarchy of much of its authority, disenfranchised most of the native population and transferred power to American, European and native Hawaiian elites. This was followed by the forced creation of the Republic of Hawaii in 1893, the abdication of Queen Liliuokalani and Hawaii's annexation by the United States of America in 1898.

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

Homes > Residential buildings > Bungalows

People > Adults > Men

People > Adults > Women

People > Domestic > Servants

People > Entertainment and sports > Authors

Places > North America > Hawaii

Plants > Trees > Trees

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