Book description
Driven to the South Seas by ill health, Stevenson could not close his
eyes to the impact of colonialism, the 'stirabout of epochs and races,
barbarisms and civilisations, virtues and crimes'. Setting his
imaginative writings within the social and political contexts of his
letters and essays from the South Seas, reveals the deepening and
broadening of Stevenson's genius and his growing awareness of and anger
at white exploitation. It was a society in which his love of adventure,
his awareness of the extremes of human nature, and his fascination with
good and evil, could find full release. Tales of the South Seas gathers
together all of Stevenson's South Sea fiction and a selection of prose
and letters provides not only a vivid portrait of a colourful and exotic
world, but also a full and rounded picture of a superb writer at the
height of his powers.
