Book Description
In April 1890 the steamer Janet Nichol set off from Sydney for a three month trading voyage through the central and western Pacific. Aboard were seven European men, a crew of forty islanders, and one woman: a short-haired, barefoot, cigarette-smoking American, Fanny Van de Grift Stevenson, wife of Robert Louis Stevenson. The Cruise of the Janet Nichol is Fanny's account of her journey with her husband and grown son through what are today the Cook Islands, Tuvalu, Kiribati, and the Marshall Islands.

Fanny Stevenson's spirited personality led her into scenes and situations few Europeans, and even fewer European women, had experienced. Her diary and its photographs offer unique glimpses of life in some of the last independent Pacific kingdoms and those just coming under colonial rule at the end of the nineteenth century. This extraordinary travel book is the story of an unconventional woman, her unusual marriage, and her adventurous journey through a rapidly changing Pacific world.

"I can see her now—a small woman in a blue dress, sitting barefoot on the roof of the after-cabin of a trading schooner in the South Seas. Her Panama hat, set at a rakish angle, shades a face of breath-taking beauty. She is holding a large silvered revolver in each hand, shooting sharks with deadly accuracy as they are caught and hauled to the taffrail by excited sailors."—Austin Strong on Fanny Stevenson, "The Most Unforgettable Character I've Met" ... Read more

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This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.Download Description
Gentlemen, - In the volume now in your hands, the authors have touched upon that ugly devil of crime, with which it is your glory to have contended. It were a waste of ink to do so in a serious spirit. Let us dedicate our horror to acts of a more mingled strain, where crime preserves some features of nobility, and where reason and humanity can still relish the temptation. Horror, in this case, is due to Mr. Parnell: he sits before posterity silent, Mr. Forster's appeal echoing down the ages. Horror is due to ourselves, in that we have so long coquetted with political crime; not seriously weighing, not acutely following it from cause to consequence; but with a generous, unfounded heat of sentiment, like the schoolboy with the penny tale, applauding what was specious. When it touched ourselves (truly in a vile shape), we proved false to the imaginations; discovered, in a clap, that crime was no less cruel and no less ugly under sounding names; and recoiled from our false deities.But seriousness comes most in place when we are to speak of our defenders. Whoever be in the right in this great and confused war of politics; whatever elements of greed, whatever traits of the bully, dishonour both parties in this inhuman contest; - your side, your part, is at least pure of doubt. Yours is the side of the child, of the breeding woman, of individual pity and public trust. If our society were the mere kingdom of the devil (as indeed it wears some of his colours) it yet embraces many precious elements and many innocent persons whom it is a glory to defend. Courage and devotion, so common in the ranks of the police, so little recognised, so meagrely rewarded, have at length found their commemoration in an historical act. History, which will represent Mr. Parnell sitting silent under the appeal of Mr. Forster, and Gordon setting forth upon his tragic enterprise, will not forget Mr. Cole carrying the dynamite in his defenceless hands, nor Mr. Cox coming coolly to his aid. ... Read more

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The life of Fanny Van de Grift Stevenson, wife of famed author Robert Louis Stevenson, with a new introduction by Ysabel Sanchez Matney. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (2)

Tosh and piffle.
Boring and self indulgent. Moneyed person has mid-life crisis. Buys things and has a holiday complete with servants.

A Fantastic Book
This book was a total joy, having been obsessd with the saga of Fanny and Robert Louis Stevenson myself. Pamela Stephenson(no relation) buys a yacht and follows the exact passage of the south seas voyage of the Stevensons, with a full crew and her teenage daughter Scarlett. A book to treasure (no pun intended) and one I will dip into again and again, whenever I need feminine inspspiration. Go Pamela! ... Read more