STEVENSON ROBERT LOUIS: (1850-1894) ´´ when a man is down on his luck, he is...
STEVENSON ROBERT LOUIS: (1850-1894) Scottish novelist of Treasure Island (1883), Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) and Kidnapped (1886). A.L.S., with his initials R.L.S., one page, 4to, n.p. (Samoa), n.d. (c.1890), to Harry J. Moors (´My dear Moors´). Stevenson announces ´Our imevitable fellow has turned up´ and continues ´It seems he has been fired from the place he was in and is now staying with Folau at a cheaper rate: suppose we applied our money $5 each, as far as it will go in the Folau racket?´, further remarking ´I think it best in principle in any case of this kind to pay the landlord not the lodger: when a man is down on his luck, he is awfully apt to take "a pull at the gowans", like Mr. Micawber´. In concluding Stevenson writes ´I´ll be down before the Lubeck goes, and we´ll see if we can´t get him shipped off. This kind of thing is bad for the digestion´ and acknowledges receipt of a message received via Henry, for which he thanks Moors. With blank integral leaf. An ink annotation in another hand to the upper corner states ´Reproduce in facsimile to face page 137´ (presumably within With Stevenson in Samoa, a memoir by Moors detailing his intimate friendship and daily life with Stevenson, published in 1910). Some light creasing, minor staining and age wear, and with a small file hole to the upper left corner, G
The American trader Harry J. Moors and Stevenson were close friends and business associates during the novelist´s final years in Samoa. Moors had been the first person to meet Stevenson's party when they arrived on the schooner Equator in December 1889, and he was instrumental in persuading Stevenson to make Samoa his permanent home.
Folau was a high-ranking judicial official on Samoa, serving as Chief Judge of Apia. Stevenson specifically sought him out to handle a case of forgery, a crime that Stevenson noted was virtually unknown in Samoa at the time. Folau was reportedly fascinated by the novelty of the offense, asking Stevenson what the appropriate punishment should be.
The phrase ´a pull at the gowans´ is most famous for its appearance in the song Auld Lang Syne by Robert Burns. It is also associated with the character Mr. Micawber in Charles Dickens´s novel David Copperfield. Dickens uses it to illustrate Mr. Micawber’s characteristic verbosity and love for high-flown, sentimental language when, in Chapter 28, Mr. Micawber famously alludes to the song while drinking punch with David and Traddles. Stevenson, a fellow Scot and an admirer of both Burns and Dickens, evidently used the phrase in the present letter as a playful nod to this double literary heritage.
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STEVENSON ROBERT LOUIS: (1850-1894) Scottish novelist of Treasure Island (1883), Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) and Kidnapped (1886). A.L.S., with his initials R.L.S., one page, 4to, n.p. (Samoa), n.d. (c.1890), to Harry J. Moors (´My dear Moors´). Stevenson announces ´Our imevitable fellow has turned up´ and continues ´It seems he has been fired from the place he was in and is now staying with Folau at a cheaper rate: suppose we applied our money $5 each, as far as it will go in the Folau racket?´, further remarking ´I think it best in principle in any case of this kind to pay the landlord not the lodger: when a man is down on his luck, he is awfully apt to take "a pull at the gowans", like Mr. Micawber´. In concluding Stevenson writes ´I´ll be down before the Lubeck goes, and we´ll see if we can´t get him shipped off. This kind of thing is bad for the digestion´ and acknowledges receipt of a message received via Henry, for which he thanks Moors. With blank integral leaf. An ink annotation in another hand to the upper corner states ´Reproduce in facsimile to face page 137´ (presumably within With Stevenson in Samoa, a memoir by Moors detailing his intimate friendship and daily life with Stevenson, published in 1910). Some light creasing, minor staining and age wear, and with a small file hole to the upper left corner, G
The American trader Harry J. Moors and Stevenson were close friends and business associates during the novelist´s final years in Samoa. Moors had been the first person to meet Stevenson's party when they arrived on the schooner Equator in December 1889, and he was instrumental in persuading Stevenson to make Samoa his permanent home.
Folau was a high-ranking judicial official on Samoa, serving as Chief Judge of Apia. Stevenson specifically sought him out to handle a case of forgery, a crime that Stevenson noted was virtually unknown in Samoa at the time. Folau was reportedly fascinated by the novelty of the offense, asking Stevenson what the appropriate punishment should be.
The phrase ´a pull at the gowans´ is most famous for its appearance in the song Auld Lang Syne by Robert Burns. It is also associated with the character Mr. Micawber in Charles Dickens´s novel David Copperfield. Dickens uses it to illustrate Mr. Micawber’s characteristic verbosity and love for high-flown, sentimental language when, in Chapter 28, Mr. Micawber famously alludes to the song while drinking punch with David and Traddles. Stevenson, a fellow Scot and an admirer of both Burns and Dickens, evidently used the phrase in the present letter as a playful nod to this double literary heritage.
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