Our Samoan Adventure

by Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne Stevenson, Robert Louis Stevenson

Dust jacket notes: "After more than sixty years of obscurity, this diary brings to light the mind and heart of the remarkable woman who shared Robert Louis Stevenson's last years on a South Sea Island. Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne, Stevenson's American wife, sailed with him from San Francisco in June, 1888. She was not to see America again until years after her husband's death, for on Samoa they found at last the only climate which meant life and comparative health for Louis. There in a house above the sea they lived for the remaining four years of his life, in a household which included Louis' mother, Fanny's two children by a former marriage, her son-in-law, and a retinue of Samoan servants. This exotic interlude has furnished the world of letters with one of its most romantic and popular legends. And Fanny herself has become the subject of much mystery and exaggerated conjecture. As her journal now clearly reveals, she was actually, as Charles Neider points out in his introduction, 'an unusual human being in her own right, frank as few are frank, courageous in the extreme, and...a writer in the best American traditions....' This is the record of a witty and valiant lady struggling with an alien environment, which included everything from volcanoes in the garden to Louis' political championing of a deposed native king - all with a contagious enjoyment. And through these pages rich in personality and event come the overtones of mutual concern and sympathy which made up that unusual marriage so few have understood until now...."

Textbook Binding

First published June 1, 1955

About the author

Frances (Fanny) Matilda Van de Grift Osbourne Stevenson was the wife of the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson.

While in Paris, she met and befriended Stevenson. Convinced of his talent, she encouraged and inspired him. He became deeply attached to her, but Fanny returned abruptly to California.

Stevenson announced his intention of following her, but his parents refused to pay for it, so he saved for three years to pay his own way. In 1879, despite protests of family and friends, Stevenson went to Monterey, California, where Fanny was recovering from an emotional breakdown related to indecision about whether to leave her philandering husband. Stevenson wrote many of his most 'muscular' essays in Monterey while awaiting Fanny's decision.

The lady ultimately chose Stevenson, and in May 1880, they were married in San Francisco. A few days later, the couple left for a honeymoon in the Napa Valley, where Stevenson produced his work Silverado Squatters. He later wrote The Amateur Emigrant in two parts about his passage to America: From the Clyde to Sandy Hook and Across the Plains. His middle-class friends were shocked by his travel with the lower classes; it was not published in full in his lifetime, and his father bought up most copies.

In August 1880, the family moved to Great Britain, where Fanny helped to patch things up between Robert and his father. Always in search of a climate conducive to Stevenson's ailing health, the couple travelled to the Adirondacks in the US. In 1888, they chartered the Casco out of San Francisco and sailed to Western Samoa. Later voyages on the Equator and Janet Nicoll with Lloyd followed. They settled in Upolu, at their home Vailima, where Stevenson died on 3 December 1894.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanny...]

Reviews

[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can now add Fanny Stevenson to the list of women whose friendship I would have liked.

[Laura Roden · Rating 4 out of 5]

Grippingly interesting for someone (like me) interested in RLS and/or life in the South Seas in general. A barely edited compendium of Fanny's diaries during their 3 years in Samoa, the book is startlingly well written: descriptive, flowing, energetic, thoughtful. A valuable fillip is that the editor has interspersed snippets of some of RLS's contemporaneous correspondence among the diary entries so that one can compare their perspectives. I'd call it a must-read for RLS and/or Pacific Island history enthusiasts, and it was an easy, enjoyable read too. I feel better informed about RLS, his family members and 19th century expat life in Samoa.
NOTE the copy I acquired is a hardcover print-to-order from India and beautifully made, my first experience with this service but I will return to them for other out of print titles.