Robert Louis Stevenson's grave

Category

Museums & Galleries Item

Item no

19743

Title

p. 49a, Robert Louis Stevenson's grave with people on either side

Description

A group of mostly Samoan's are gathered round Robert Louis Stevenson's grave on top of Vaea Mountain on Samoa. The grave has a floral cross on top of it and over it a feathered canopy hangs. Belle Strong and Lloyd and Austin Osbourne stand to the right. The mountain top is surrounded by trees and leaves thickly cover the ground.

Artist / maker

Unknown

Date

1889

Size

14.1 x 19.8 cm

Type

Photograph

Location

Writers' Museum

Vaea Mountain overlooked Vailima and Stevenson had expressed a wish to be buried at the top. He died suddenly of a brain haemorrhage on the evening of 3rd December 1894. During the night, a path was cut up the side of Vaea Mountain and the funeral took place the next day.

Fanny (nee Vandegrift) was Robert Louis Stevenson's wife, pictured here are her children from her first marriage to Sam Osbourne; with Lloyd Osbourne and Belle Strong and Austin Strong 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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Related subjects

People > Entertainment and sports > Authors

Places > Oceania > Samoa

Plants > Trees > Trees

Religion > Religious facilities > Graveyards

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