The Bottle Imp (1891) is a short story by the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson usually found in the short story collection Island Nights' Entertainments. It was first published in the New York Herald (Feb-March 1891) and Black and White London (March–April 1891).
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The story is about a working class native of Hawaiʻi, Keawe, who buys a strange bottle from a sad, elderly gentleman who credits the bottle with fortune, and promises that an imp residing in the bottle will also grant Keawe his every desire.
Of course, there is a catch — the bottle must be sold at a loss, i.e. for less than its owner originally paid, or else it will simply return to him. The currency used in the transaction must also be in coin (not paper money or a bank cheque/check). The bottle may not be thrown or given away. If an owner of the bottle dies without having sold it in the prescribed manner, that person's soul will burn for eternity in Hell.
The bottle was said to have been brought to Earth by the Devil and first purchased by Prester John for millions of dollars; it was owned by Napoleon and Captain James Cook and accounted for their great successes, but each sold it — leading both of them to meet a nasty end as a consequence. By the time of the story the price has diminished to eighty dollars, and it declines rapidly thereafter to a matter of pennies.
Keawe buys the bottle and instantly wishes his money to be refunded, to convince himself he hadn't been suckered. When his pockets fill with coins, he realizes the bottle does indeed have unholy power. He finds he cannot abandon it or sell it for a profit, so he wishes for his heart's desire: a big, fancy mansion. He then sells the bottle to a friend (after explaining the risks) and returns to Hawaiʻi.
Upon his return, Keawe's wish has been granted, but at a price: his beloved uncle and cousins have been killed in a boating accident, leaving Keawe sole heir to his uncle's fortune. Keawe is horrified, but uses the money to build his house, before selling the bottle to a friend.
Keawe lives a happy life, but there is something missing. Walking along the beach one night, he meets a beautiful woman, Kokua. They soon fall in love and become engaged. Keawe's happiness is shattered on the night of his betrothal, when he discovers that he has contracted the then-incurable disease of leprosy. He must give up his house and wife, and live in Kalaupapa—a remote community for lepers—unless he can recover the bottle and use it to cure himself.
Keawe begins this quest by tracking down the friend to whom he sold the bottle, but the friend has become suddenly wealthy and left Hawaiʻi. Keawe traces the path of the bottle through many buyers and eventually finds the current owner, a Haole of Beritania Street, Honolulu, who has bad news: he only paid two cents for it. If Keawe buys it for one cent, he won't be able to resell it.
Keawe decides to buy the bottle anyway, and indeed cures himself. Now, however, he is understandably despondent: how can he possibly enjoy life, knowing his doom? His wife mistakes his depression for regret at their marriage, and asks for a divorce. Keawe confesses to her his secret.
His wife suggests they sail to Tahiti, where the colonists of French Polynesia use centimes, a coin worth one-fifth of an American cent. When they arrive, however, the suspicious natives won't touch the cursed bottle. Since he would never sell the bottle to her knowingly, Kokua decides to save her husband by bribing an old sailor to buy the bottle for four centimes, and she will secretly buy it back for three. Now Keawe is happy, but she carries the curse.
Keawe discovers what his wife has done, and resolves to sacrifice himself for her in the same manner. He arranges for a brutish boatswain to buy the bottle for two centimes, promising he will buy it back for one, thus sealing his doom. However, the drunken sailor refuses to part with it, and is unafraid of the prospect of hell. "I reckon I'm going anyway," he says.
Keawe returns to his wife, both of them free from the curse, and the reader is encouraged to believe that they live happily ever after.
The theme of the bottle imp can be found in the German legend Spiritus familiaris by the Brothers Grimm as well.[1]
The novel reflects Stevenson's impressions gained during his five-month visit of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi in 1889.[2] Part of the storyline takes place in the little town Hoʻokena at the Kona coast of the island of Hawaiʻi, which the author visited.[3] In a scene which takes place in Honolulu Stevenson mentions Heinrich Berger, the bandmaster of the Royal Hawaiian Band.[4] The name of Keawe's wife refers to the Hawaiian word kōkua,[5] which means help. In 1889 Stevenson also visited the leper colony on the island of Molokaʻi and met Father Damien there. Therefore he had a first-hand experience from the fate of lepers.[6] Several times Stevenson uses the Hawaiian word Haole, which is the usual term for caucasians, for example describing the last owner of the bottle.[7]
The story could be considered as both a continuation of and a rather light-hearted counterpoint to the theme of selling one's soul to The Devil, manifested in the numerous depictions of Doctor Faust as well as in such stories as "The Devil and Tom Walker" by Washington Irving and "The Devil and Daniel Webster" by Stephen Vincent Benet.
According to Publishers Weekly and School Library Journal (both quoted by Amazon.com) "this tale was originally published, in Samoan, in 1891".[8] The Locus Online Index to Science Fiction similarly states "The Stevenson story was first published in Samoan in 1891, appearing later that year in English."[9] The Project Gutenberg text of the story has a note by Stevenson[10] which says "...the tale has been designed and written for a Polynesian audience..." which also suggests initial publication in Polynesia, not in the United States.
The premise of the story creates a logical paradox similar to the unexpected hanging paradox. Clearly no rational person would buy it for one cent as this would make it impossible for it to be sold at a loss. However, it follows that no rational person would buy it for two cents either if it is later to be sold on to a rational person for a loss. By induction, the bottle cannot be sold for any price in a perfectly rational world. And yet, the actions of the people in the story do not seem particularly unwise.[11]
The story shows that the paradox can be resolved by the existence of one of three types of characters:
A silent film based on Stevenson's story was released in 1917. The screenplay was adapted by Charles Maigne. The film was directed by Marshall Neilan, and starred Sessue Hayakawa, Lehua Waipahu, H. Komshi, George Kuwa, Guy Oliver and James Neill.[12]
The story has inspired a trick-taking game. Originally designed in German by Günter Cornett, it is called Flaschenteufel. It was first published in 1995 by Bambus Spieleverlag,[13] and was re-released by Z-Man Games in 2010 under the name "Bottle Imp."[14]
The game is played with a bottle token and a proprietary deck of thirty-seven cards with a total ordering from 1 to 37. A card will be either one of three colors which act like suits and there is no trump.
At the beginning of the game, the token is not attached to any player. Card #19 is the price of the bottle. The rest of the cards are dealt out equally to all players. After hands are dealt, each player discards one card, passes one card left and one card right.
The player to the left of the dealer leads the first trick. Players must play a matching color card if they have one, otherwise they may play any card. If a trick contains no cards lower than the price of the bottle then the highest card takes the trick. If a trick contains a card lower than the price of the bottle, then the highest card lower than the price takes the trick. That player gets the bottle token and the card used to win the trick becomes the new price. Tricks are led by the winner of the previous trick.
Players keep the cards won in tricks. Cards used to "purchase" the bottle are returned to the player who played them when a new price is set. Play continues until all cards are played.
At the end of the round, players who do not have the bottle score the face value of all cards they won. The player who ends the round with the bottle loses the sum of the cards discarded at the beginning of play. Play continues until a player reaches 500 points total. [15]
The element of the bottle determines much of the strategy in the game: since it is harder to get rid of the bottle at a lower value than at a higher one, players will generally try to get rid of their lowest cards early on in the game when there is a better chance that someone else will play a higher card that is still lower than the bottle's value.[16]
The Association for Scottish Literary Studies (ASLS) produces a free biannual ezine on classic and contemporary Scottish literature called The Bottle Imp, which takes its name from Robert Louis Stevenson's short story. The first issue was published in May 2007.[17]