Island Nights' Entertainments

"South Sea Tales" redirects here. For the collection by Jack London, see South Sea Tales (1911).

Island Nights' Entertainments (also known as South Sea Tales) is a collection of short stories by Robert Louis Stevenson, first published in 1893. It would prove to contain some of his final completed work before his death in 1894.

It contains three stories:

Dedication

The dedication was written in January 1892 in a letter to Charles Baxter, Robert Louis Stevenson's friend and adviser, and the book finally published in 1893.[1] The dedication reads:

To three old shipmates among the islands,
Harry Henderson,
Ben Hird,
Jack Buckland,
their friend
R.L.S.

All three were Robert Louis Stevenson's fellow cabin passengers on the 1890 Janet Nicholl voyage.[2][3] Harry Henderson was a partner in the firm Henderson and Macfarlane (died 1926, Melbourne); Ben Hird, the supercargo and trader; Jack Buckland a copra trader and original of the Tommy Hadden character in The Wrecker.[4] Jack Buckland’s dedication copy of Island Nights’ Entertainments was inscribed by Stevenson to "John B. Buncombe alias Buckland". A character called ‘young Buncombe’ makes a brief appearance in chapter 2 of "The Beach of Falesá".[1]

References

Wikisource has original text related to this article:
  1. 1 2 The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson. Volume Seven, September 1890 - December 1892. Bradford A. Booth and Ernest Mehew (Editors). Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-06213-7
  2. The Cruise of the Janet Nichol Among the South Sea Islands, Mrs Robert Louis Stevenson, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1914.
  3. James Cowan, (1937). R. L. S. and his Friends Some Stevenson Memories. New Zealand Railways Magazine, 12(2):59-61.
  4. The Circular Saw Shipping Line. Anthony G. Flude. 1993. (Chapter 7)

External links


This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Wednesday, February 03, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.