Details
STEVENSON, ROBERT LOUIS (1850-1894). Photograph inscribed and signed ("Robert Louis Stevenson"), n.p., n.d. [circa 1890]. 170 x 119 mm. (6 3/8 x 4 11/16 in.) including mount, some overall browning, some spotting on mount; matted. A very direct and striking half-length seated portrait of the author, with hands folded on the arm of a chair, inscribed on the mount: "Mrs. Frank Hume in memory of a first class liner, from Robert Louis Stevenson."
"Like his fictional Dr. Jekyll, Stevenson had two sides: the sickly, tubercular law student, and the flamboyant adventurer who traveled from his native Scotland to America (he lived in New York State briefly, where he wrote Treasure Island) and Africa, and ended his days on the South Sea Island of Samoa. The photo, which Stevenson gave to a fellow passenger on an ocean liner, 'lays open a vital and engaging face...and intelligence, so rarely caught on film, dances in warm eyes' (J.D. Reed, Time)"--W.M.
"Like his fictional Dr. Jekyll, Stevenson had two sides: the sickly, tubercular law student, and the flamboyant adventurer who traveled from his native Scotland to America (he lived in New York State briefly, where he wrote Treasure Island) and Africa, and ended his days on the South Sea Island of Samoa. The photo, which Stevenson gave to a fellow passenger on an ocean liner, 'lays open a vital and engaging face...and intelligence, so rarely caught on film, dances in warm eyes' (J.D. Reed, Time)"--W.M.