The Bottle Imp
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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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The Bottle Imp - Robert Louis Stevenson
THE BOTTLE IMP BY ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
published by Samizdat Express, Orange, CT, USA
established in 1974, offering over 14,000 books
Books by Robert Louis Stevenson:
Across the Plains
The Art of Writing
Ballads
Black Arrow
The Bottle Imp
Catriona or David Balfour (sequel to Kidnapped)
A Child's Garden of Verses
The Ebb-Tide
Edinburgh
Essays
Essays of Travel
Fables
Familiar Studies of Men and Books
Father Damien
Footnote to History
In the South Seas
An Inland Voyage
Island Nights' Entertainments
Kidnapped
Lay Morals
Letters
Lodging for the Night
Markheim
Master of Ballantrae
Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin
Memories and Portraits
Merry Men
Moral Emblems
New Arabian Nights
New Poems
The Pavilion on the Links
Four Plays
The Pocket R. L. S.
Prayers Written at Vailima
Prince Otto
Records of a Family of Engineers
The Sea Fogs
The Silverado Squatters
Songs of Travel
St. Ives
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Tales and Fantasies
Thrawn Janet
Travels with a Donkey
Treasure Island
Underwoods
Vailima Letters
Virginibus Puerisque
The Waif Woman
Weir of Hermiston
The Wrecker
The Wrong Box
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Note. - Any student of that very unliterary product, the English drama of the early part of the century, will here recognise the name and the root idea of a piece once rendered popular by the redoubtable O. Smith. The root idea is there and identical, and yet I hope I have made it a new thing. And the fact that the tale has been designed and written for a Polynesian audience may lend it some extraneous interest nearer home. - R. L. S.
THERE was a man of the Island of Hawaii, whom I shall call Keawe; for the truth is, he still lives, and his name must be kept secret; but the place of his birth was not far from Honaunau, where the bones of Keawe the Great lie hidden in a cave. This man was poor, brave, and active; he could read and write like a schoolmaster; he was a first-rate mariner besides, sailed for some time in the island steamers, and steered a whaleboat on the Hamakua coast. At length it came in Keawe's mind to have a sight of the great world and foreign cities, and he shipped on a vessel bound to San Francisco.
This is a fine town, with a fine harbour, and rich people uncountable; and, in particular, there is one hill which is covered with palaces. Upon this hill Keawe was one day taking a walk with his pocket full of money, viewing the great houses upon either hand with pleasure, What fine houses these are!
he was thinking, and how happy must those people be who dwell in them, and take no care for the morrow!
The thought was in his mind when he came abreast of a house that was smaller than some others, but all finished and beautified like a toy; the steps of that house shone like silver, and the borders of the garden bloomed like garlands, and the windows were bright like diamond; and Keawe stopped and wondered at the excellence of all he saw. So stopping, he was aware of a man that looked forth upon him through a window so clear that Keawe could see him as you see a fish in a pool upon the reef. The man was elderly, with a bald head and a black beard; and his face was heavy with sorrow, and he bitterly sighed. And the truth of it is, that as Keawe looked in upon the man, and the man looked out upon Keawe, each envied the other.
All of a sudden, the man smiled and nodded, and beckoned