Review by Wanda Adams The Honolulu Advertiser October 26 2003
Robinson a senior professor of English at Victoria University of Wellington New Zealand tells how the man who would come to be called Tusitala Writer of Tales left his native Scotland just as his fame as a writer was spreading to pursue his dream of a south Pacific idyll. Cadaverous and plagues by pain and illness in the throat and chest Stevenson first traveled the South Pacific in a rented yacht then journeyed north to Hawaii before deciding to return south permanently. Part travel journal part collected works this anthology points up the themes that fascinated the writer and his championing love of the island world.
Review by Emelither Kihleng Pacific Magazine March 1 2004
In his foreword to Robert Louis Stevenson: His Best Pacific Writings Albert Wendt renowned Pacific scholar writes Stevenson himself and Europes romantic notions bout the South Seas helped create and enlarge that legend. To those from the Pacific the legend is all too familiar -and not nearly as exotic. But it is for that reason that Bess Presss new book is worth exploring. The collection includes excerpts from Stevensons travelogue In the South Seas letters short stories such as The Beach of Falsea and The Isle of Voices poems and more. Stevensons works are carefully selected and arranged along with commentary by Roger Robinson senior Professor of English at Victoria University of Wellington New Zealand. The book allows readers insights into Stevensons sincere and often ethnographic interest in a part of the world he loved and died in.
Review by Joseph W. Bean Maui Weekly April 22 2004
Unlike Jack London Mark Twain or any of the many famous writers who toured the Pacific and wrote about the people and cultures here Robert Louis Stevenson came to make his life here dying in Samoa in 1894. He was in the Pacific for only six years but they were powerfully productive years during which he wrote his fables finished The Master of Ballantrae and produced dozens of stories essays and letters of genuine literary importance.
Some members of the Stevenson family made their home in Hawai'i so he came here and stayed here for nearly half a year. Naturally he wrote here but his heart was inclined to the South Pacific where his charm and generosity earned him the name Tusitala writer of tales.
Of course all of Stevensons work is now in the public domain and several pieces are regularly republished in paperback collections. His story Isle of Voices and a poem he wrote to try to entice Princess Ka'iulani to visit Scotland are in the Hawaiian Readers first volume published in 1959 and still available. His famous story of the Bottle Imp and An Open Letter to the Reverend Dr. Hyde of Honolulu in defense of the memory of Father Damien appear in the second volume published 1998. And yet the great majority of Stevensons Pacific writings are seldom seen in print. That tragedy is amply addressed by this book with its 27 selections.
The great pleasure of reading Stevenson is tremendously heightened here by the contexts and commentaries provided by Roger Robinson who credits himself with selection introduction and commentaries but not editing. The writing is therefore presumably purely as RLS set it down.
There are stories and fables in the volume some of them unseen for many years but the poems or ballads at the back of the book are even more rarely seen and all the more welcome.
If youre already a great RLS fan you might be looking for some of the eternally out of print fables like Theres Something in It. Those are not here. Instead you will largely find pieces you never knew existed plus two seldom-published Hawai'i pieces: One is an exuberant letter to a relative about the excitement of deep sea travel called here The Best Hand at the Wheel. The other is a moving travelogue of his visit to the leper colony at Kalaupapa. That piece is called Melancholy Landing.
For a reader who wants to see only Hawai'i represented in a book the offering is slight although it is increased some in the pages of the poetry. However if grasping the genius and appreciating the literary figure of RLS is of interest this book is a necessity.
Review by James Cox Library Bookwatch October 1 2004
Robert Louis Stevenson is one of the great and enduringly popular writers in the history of English literature. While most readers will be familiar with his major novels literary commentator and scholar Roger Robinson Senior Professor of English Victoria University of Wellington New Zealand has selected and compiled Stevensons best Pacific writings and enhances them for contemporary readers with an informative introduction and illuminating commentaries. A welcome and enthusiastically recommended compendium especially for students scholars and non-specialist general readers with an interest in the life and work of Robert Louis Stevenson!
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