There’s also a massive double train wreck, metal and mutilation, where one of the shell-shocked survivors declares “I think there may have been some sort of accident.”ĭespite dozens of excellent moments, I marked it down from a four to a three star rating not because I didn’t think it was great stuff but because the language can be stilted, there are slow sections that could have been cut down to keep the action rolling, then it goes a bit wrong near the end and reads like a rush for the finish post. Then, after a supposed murder, failure to declare the death followed by desecration of the corpse and forgery of its signature, “the legal profession can be so petty”. Excuse the quotation from memory, as the book is no longer to hand, but some of the lines are just as applicable today, things like “Julia often made acquaintances in Bournemouth… and would have greatly preferred more allowance and less uncle.” There’s also “an incident at the railway ticket office which bordered on brigandage”, which sounds familiar and still topical to me. He must have been a serious man with a sarcastic sense of humour that was dying to tunnel its way out of the starched shirt. RLS is generally thought of as an author of dramatic adventures, but this is a departure because it’s a macabre comedy, a farce if you like. The story feels as if it was written by one mind, holding it in the hollow of a single hand with no hint of committee input.

There’s a co-writer, Lloyd Osbourne, but he must have been reasonably good too because I can’t tell which passages are Stevenson’s and which are not.

He only lived from 1850 to 1894 and this little number was published in 1889, so represents one of his final achievements delivered at the height of his powers. Robert Louis Stevenson is a household name, whose works include Treasure Island, Kidnapped and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

The wrong box stevenson