Probably a reference to Bernice Pauaohi Bishop, after whom Honolulu’s Bishop Museum was founded in 1889, the year Stevenson was in Hawaii. She was the wife of missionary Charles Reed Bishop and a member of the Hawaiian royal family.
1. A taboo, a proscription.
* Gin and brandy, [R.L.S.]
1. The Indian Mutiny of 1857, in which many of the Sepoy troops of the East India Company’s Bengal army mutinied.
1. Rarotonga, the largest of the Cook Islands, a scattered Polynesian group in the Central Pacific.
1. A dress rather like a nightgown introduced after European contact in an effort to make Polynesian women cover themselves modestly.
1. Tarawa. Also known as the Knox Islands, part of the Gilbert group.
1. Alloway in Ayrshire is the birthplace of Robert Burns. In Burns’s famous poem ‘Tam o’Shanter’ Tam encounters ‘warlocks and witches’ in Alloway kirkyard during a drunken ride home.
Throughout his time in the Pacific Stevenson was writing fiction, both short stories and full-length novels. Of the three shorter pieces included here, ‘The Bottle Imp’ was probably written first, during Stevenson’s first stay in Samoa in December 1889 and January 1890. It was published in instalments in the New York Herald in February 1891, and in Black and White (London) in March and April. ‘The Isle of Voices’ was written in the autumn of 1892 and published in the National Observer in February 1893. The Beach of Falesá was begun in November 1890, but most of it was written during the following September. It was serialised in the Illustrated London News in July and August 1892, but Stevenson was put under pressure to make a number of alterations. The editor felt changes were needed to render the story more palatable to his readers. Stevenson was extremely unhappy about this, and referred to the published version as ‘slashed and gaping ruins’.1
Thanks to the researches of Professor Barry Menikoff, the full extent of the changes forced on the manuscript are now known, and reproduced here is Stevenson’s original text. All three stories appeared in Island Night’s Entertainments (1893) although Stevenson would have preferred to keep the two stories ‘The Bottle Imp’ and ‘The Isle of Voices’, written for a Polynesian audience, separate from The Beach of Falesá. I have brought them together here as they are equally the products of Stevenson’s sympathetic interest in the South Seas.
The two full-length novels show different approaches to Stevenson’s Pacific experiences. The Wrecker, a collaboration between Lloyd Osbourne and Stevenson, was begun in the summer of 1889 and finished nearly two years later. It, too, was serialised, in Scribner’s Magazine from August 1891 to the following July, before being published in volume form in 1892. It was Lloyd Osbourne who started on The Ebb-Tide, while the Stevenson party was staying in Honolulu in 1889. Later work on the novel was by Stevenson alone, who completed it in 1893. Although it is now recognised as being almost entirely the work of Stevenson, it was first published under both names. After serialisation in the magazine To-day, from November 1893 to February 1894, and in McClure’s Magazine (USA) from February to July 1896 the book was published in the United States in July of that year and in Britain in September.
Apart from The Beach of Falesá, the text of the stories and novels is taken from the Edinburgh Edition, the collected edition of Stevenson’s work in preparation at the time of his death.
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 diamonds; 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.
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