Island Night's Entertainment Author:Robert Louis Stevenson This short story collection (also known as South Sea Tales) was — first published in 1893. It contains some of Stevenson's last finished — works before he died in 1894. — There are three tales: — The Beach of Falesa — "I saw that island first when it was neither night nor morning. The — moon was to the west, setting, but still broad and bright. To the... more »
east, and right amidships of the dawn, which was all pink, the
daystar sparkled like a diamond. The land breeze blew in our
faces, and smelt strong of wild lime and vanilla: other things
besides, but these were the most plain; and the chill of it set me
sneezing. I should say I had been for years on a low island near
the line, living for the most part solitary among natives. Here
was a fresh experience: even the tongue would be quite strange to
me; and the look of these woods and mountains, and the rare smell
of them, renewed my blood." R.L.S.
The Bottle Imp
"Any student of that very unliterary product, the English
drama of the early part of the century, will here recognise the
name and the root idea of a piece once rendered popular by the
redoubtable O. Smith. The root idea is there and identical, and
yet I hope I have made it a new thing. And the fact that the tale
has been designed and written for a Polynesian audience may lend it
some extraneous interest nearer home." R.L.S.
The Isle of Voices
"Keola was married with Lehua, daughter of Kalamake, the wise man of
Molokai, and he kept his dwelling with the father of his wife.
There was no man more cunning than that prophet; he read the stars,
he could divine by the bodies of the dead, and by the means of evil
creatures: he could go alone into the highest parts of the
mountain, into the region of the hobgoblins, and there he would lay
snares to entrap the spirits of the ancient." R.L.S.« less