Island Nights' Entertainments
Island Nights' Entertainments (also known as South Sea Tales) is a collection of short stories by Robert Louis Stevenson, first published in 1893. It would prove to contain some of his final completed work before his death in 1894.
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It contains three stories:
Dedication
The dedication was written in January 1892 in a letter to Charles Baxter, Robert Louis Stevenson's friend and adviser, and the book finally published in 1893.[1] The dedication reads:
To three old shipmates among the islands,
- Harry Henderson,
- Ben Hird,
- Jack Buckland,
- their friend
- R.L.S.
All three were Robert Louis Stevenson's fellow cabin passengers on the 1890 Janet Nicholl voyage.[2][3] Harry Henderson was a partner in the firm Henderson and Macfarlane (died 1926, Melbourne); Ben Hird, the supercargo and trader; Jack Buckland a copra trader and original of the Tommy Hadden character in The Wrecker.[4] Jack Buckland’s dedication copy of Island Nights’ Entertainments was inscribed by Stevenson to "Jack Buckland, from Robert Louis Stevenson".[1]
References
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- The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson. Volume Seven, September 1890 - December 1892. Bradford A. Booth and Ernest Mehew (Editors). Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-06213-7
- The Cruise of the Janet Nichol Among the South Sea Islands, Mrs Robert Louis Stevenson, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1914.
- James Cowan, (1937). R. L. S. and his Friends Some Stevenson Memories. New Zealand Railways Magazine, 12(2):59-61.
- The Circular Saw Shipping Line. Archived 2011-06-09 at the Wayback Machine Anthony G. Flude. 1993. (Chapter 7)
External links
- Island Nights' Entertainments title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- Island Nights' Entertainments by Robert Louis Stevenson at Project Gutenberg
Island Nights' Entertainments public domain audiobook at LibriVox