The Wrecker (novel)

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The Wrecker
Author	Robert Louis Stevenson Lloyd Osbourne
Country	Scotland
Language	English
Genre(s)	Novel
Publisher	Cassell
Publication date	1892
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
ISBN	NA

The Wrecker (1892) is a novel written by Robert Louis Stevenson in collaboration with his stepson Lloyd Osbourne. The story revolves around the abandoned wreck of the Flying Scud at Midway Island. Clues in a stamp collection are used to track down the missing crew and solve the mystery. It is only in the last chapter that different story elements become linked.^[1]

Stevenson described it as a ‘South Sea yarn’ concerning ‘a very strange and defective plan that was accepted with open eyes for what seemed countervailing opportunities offered’. Although the book sold well, reviews were mixed, with a The New York Times reviewer concluding that:^[1]

“

The Wrecker is a kind of blank-cartridge romance with a big explosion, which raises a dust, and if anything really has happened it escapes you in the flash and the cloud of smoke.

”

The different loosely connected stories reflected how Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne wrote the book. Each contributed different sections but agreeing to develop characters and descriptions of places they both knew well. The following are examples:

• The schooner Equator (1888-1953) inspired the story. Its remains are preserved in a shed at Marina Park at the Port of Everett, Washington.

• John 'Tin Jack' Buckland (grandson of William Thomas Buckland, the Wraysbury auctioneer; born 1864, Sydney; died 1897, Suwarrow Island), the handsome happy-go-lucky fellow cabin passenger of Lloyd Osbourne and Robert Louis Stevenson on the 1890 Janet Nicholl voyage, who inspired the ‘Remittance Man' character Tommy Hadden.^[2][3]

[edit] References

1. ^ ^{a b} “Tales by Stevenson and Others”, The New York Times: p. 19, Wednesday, July 17, 1892, <http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=940DE1D61E31E033A25754C1A9619C94639ED7CF> 
2. ^ Robert Louis Stevenson: A Critical Biography, 2 vols. John A. Steuart, (1924). Boston: Little, Brown & Co.
3. ^ Treasured Islands: Cruising the South Seas With Robert Louis Stevenson. Lowell D. Holmes, (2001). Sheridan House. [ISBN 1574091301]

[edit] External links

• The Wreker, available at Project Gutenberg.

v • d • e Works by Robert Louis Stevenson Novels: Treasure Island (1883) • Prince Otto (1885) • Kidnapped (1886) • The Black Arrow (1888) • The Master of Ballantrae (1889) • The Wrong Box (1889) • The Wrecker (1892) • Catriona (1893) • The Ebb-Tide (1894) • Weir of Hermiston (1896) • St. Ives (1897) Short story collections: New Arabian Nights (1882) • The Dynamiter (1885) • The Merry Men (1887) • Island Nights' Entertainments (1893) Short stories: "The Body Snatcher" (1881) • "Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" (1886) Other works: An Inland Voyage (1878) • Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes (1879) • The Silverado Squatters (1883) • Memories and Portraits (1887) • Across the Plains (1892) • The Amateur Emigrant (1895) Poetry: A Child's Garden of Verses (1885) • Underwoods (1887) • Ballads (1890) • Songs of Travel and Other Verses (1896)