Big diagram of the Vailima property

Category

Museums & Galleries Item

Item no

19763

Title

p. 8, Big diagram of the Vailima property

Description

A cartoon-like sketch of Robert Louis Stevenson's property at Vailima on Samoa. The drawing includes the Big House, Pineapple Cottage and the band stand. In the centre a cow and calf can be seen chasing someone carrying a lamp. The srawing is heavily annotated with numbers and descriptions of the site.

Artist / maker

Unknown

Date

1889

Size

20.1 x 32.6 cm

Type

Pen work

Location

Writers' Museum

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 where he was to spend the remaining four years of his life.

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.

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 > Houses

People > Entertainment and sports > Authors

Places > Oceania > Samoa

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