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    The Amateur Emigrant
    The Amateur Emigrant
    The Amateur Emigrant
    Audiobook4 hours

    The Amateur Emigrant

    Written by Robert Louis Stevenson

    Narrated by Donal Donnelly

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    About this audiobook

    This is the sparkling record of the haphazard six-thousand-mile odyssey that twenty-five-year-old Stevenson made in pursuit of his future wife, Fanny. The two had met and fallen in love during a trip to France, but when Fanny's first husband called her home to California, Stevenson soon followed from Scotland. The sickly Stevenson first made a turbulent Atlantic crossing, like so many nineteenth-century immigrants, as a steerage passenger in a steamer of dubious seaworthiness. After a frenetic stopover in New York City, he embarked on a two-week, three-thousand-mile trip across the continent-the fastest and cheapest way then possible-by emigrant train. Finally arriving in the frontier town of San Francisco to win Fanny over, he was quickly captivated by California. Stevenson's often hilarious impressions of the young country, its rambunctious and colorful inhabitants, and the still-untamed continent are among his most vivid writings
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateJan 14, 2008
    ISBN9781449802172
    Author

    Robert Louis Stevenson

    Robert Louis Stevenson was born in Edinburgh in 1850, the only son of an engineer, Thomas Stevenson. Despite a lifetime of poor health, Stevenson was a keen traveller, and his first book An Inland Voyage (1878) recounted a canoe tour of France and Belgium. In 1880, he married an American divorcee, Fanny Osbourne, and there followed Stevenson's most productive period, in which he wrote, amongst other books, Treasure Island (1883), The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and Kidnapped (both 1886). In 1888, Stevenson left Britain in search of a more salubrious climate, settling in Samoa, where he died in 1894.

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    • 4/5
      Paul Therox called this "One of the ten essential travel books.". It details the first leg of Stevensons journey from Scotland to meet and marry Fanny in CA, it recounts his time on board a ship in the steerage compartment (lower-class). Stevenson described the crowded weeks in steerage with the poor and sick, as well as stowaways, and his initial reactions to New York City where he spent a few days. Filled with sharp-eyed observations, it brilliantly conveys Stevenson's perceptions of America and Americans. It also provides a very detailed and enjoyable account of what it was like to travel to America as an emigrant in the 19th century, during a time of mass migrations to the New World. Details such as the bedding arrangements, daily food rations, relationships with the crew, with other grade ticket holders, passengers of other nationalities, entertainment, children - all provide a rich and colorful tapestry of life on-board the ship.