Authors: Robert Louis Stevenson, Neil Rennie (Noted by), Neil Rennie
ISBN-13: 9780140434361, ISBN-10: 0140434364
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)
Date Published: December 1999
Edition: (Non-applicable)
The Victorian poet and novelist Robert Louis Stevenson once said, "Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant." The author of the magical A Child's Garden of Verses and the chilling The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Stevenson indeed planted powerful literary seeds -- that grew into undisputed classics.
This is the story of Stevenson's Pacific travels on the Casco and the Equator. It is a beautifully observed account of island peoples and their life; it is also the story of the beginning of his love affair with the Pacific, and of his growing commitment to the island cause. In the South Seas has been described as "the most solid of Stevenson's general writings;" it is certainly his least known book as well as a unique gem of Pacific literature, and richly deserves to be rediscovered.
Acknowledgements | vii | |
Introduction | viii | |
Note on the Text | xxxvi | |
Further Reading | xxxvii | |
Map | xl | |
In the South Seas | ||
Part I | The Marquesas | |
I. | An Island Landfall | 5 |
II. | Making Friends | 10 |
III. | The Maroon | 17 |
IV. | Death | 23 |
V. | Depopulation | 29 |
VI. | Chiefs and Tapus | 36 |
VII. | Hatiheu | 43 |
VIII. | The Port of Entry | 49 |
IX. | The House of Temoana | 55 |
X. | A Portrait and a Story | 62 |
XI. | Long-Pig - A Cannibal High Place | 68 |
XII. | The Story of a Plantation | 77 |
XIII. | Characters | 85 |
XIV. | In a Cannibal Valley | 91 |
XV. | The Two Chiefs of Atuona | 97 |
Part II | The Paumotus | |
I. | The Dangerous Archipelago - Atolls at a Distance | 107 |
II. | Fakarava: An Atoll at Hand | 113 |
III. | A House to Let in a Low Island | 120 |
IV. | Traits and Sects in the Paumotus | 127 |
V. | A Paumotuan Funeral | 136 |
VI. | Graveyard Stories | 139 |
Part III | The Gilberts | |
I. | Butaritari | 155 |
II. | The Four Brothers | 160 |
III. | Around Our House | 166 |
IV. | A Tale of a Tapu | 174 |
V. | A Tale of a Tapu - continued | 180 |
VI. | The Five Days' Festival | 189 |
VII. | Husband and Wife | 199 |
Part IV | The Gilberts - Apemama | |
I. | The King of Apemama: The Royal Trader | 209 |
II. | The King of Apemama: Foundation of Equator Town | 215 |
III. | The King of Apemama: The Palace of Many Women | 222 |
IV. | The King of Apemama: Equator Town and the Palace | 228 |
V. | King and Commons | 234 |
VI. | The King of Apemama: Devil-Work | 242 |
VII. | The King of Apemama | 252 |
Notes | 258 | |
Emendations | 283 |