STEVENSON, ROBERT LOUIS. (1850-1894). Scottish author best known for his works Kidnapped, Treasure Island, A Child’s Garden of Verses, and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. ADS. (“Robert Louis Stevenson”). 1/3 p. Oblong 12mo. N.p. [Samoa], November 1 [c. 1890]. A brief note instructing payment of 3.75 to Johnnie for five days labor, written to his friend, American trader HARRY JAY MOORS (1854-1926), who functioned as Stevenson’s agent in Samoa and authored the book With Stevenson in Samoa.
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Stevenson published his first work at 28 and became a celebrated writer whose travels around the world inspired his works including A Child’s Garden of Verses, Kidnapped and Jekyll and Hyde. Long suffering from tuberculosis, Stevenson traveled widely in search of a better climate. It was his health that led him in 1888 to explore the South Sea Islands like a character in one of his books. “On December 7, 1889, [he] reached Samoa, landing at Apia on the Island of Upola. Though of course he was not to know it, he had come to his final destination, a place he called ‘beautiful beyond dreams,’” (Louis: A Life of Robert Louis Stevenson, Callow). Stevenson died there of a stroke just two years later.
Born in California, Moors traveled to Samoa to work as a recruiter of laborers for sugar plantations. He married a local woman, opened several grocery stores, and branched out into other business ventures. It was with Moors that, upon reaching the capital city of Samoa, Stevenson and his family stayed for several weeks in December 1889. Moors recorded his first impressions of Stevenson: “He could not stand still. When I took him into my house, he walked about the room, plying me with questions, one after another, darting up and down… I was struck at once by his keen, inquiring eyes, brown in colour they were strangely bright, and seemed to penetrate you like the eyes of a mesmerist,” (quoted in Myself & the Other Fellow, Harmon). During his time in Samoa, “with Moors he remained on terms of close friendship, the basis of which appears to have been chiefly their common interest in the disturbed political condition of the islands. Mr. Moors…negotiated the purchase of the Vailima estate [where Stevenson would be buried and is now the Samoa Robert Louis Stevenson Museum], looked after the clearing of the ground, took a share in the planning of the house, and in many ways acted as Stevenson’s agent,” as attested to by our document, (A Book of R.L.S., Brown).
Trimmed with an irregular top edge and some wear. In very good condition.
