A Footnote to History: Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa is an 1892 historical non-fiction work by Scottish-born author Robert Louis Stevenson describing the contemporary Samoan Civil War.[1]
Robert Louis Stevenson arrived in Samoa in 1889 and built a house at Vailima. He quickly became passionately interested, and involved, in the attendant political machinations. These involved the three great powers battling for influence in Samoa – the United States, Germany and Britain – and the political machinations of the various Samoan factions within their indigenous political system. The book covers the period from 1882 to 1892.[2]
The book served as such a stinging protest against existing conditions that it resulted in the recall of two officials, and Stevenson for a time feared that it would result in his own deportation. When things had finally blown over he wrote to Sidney Colvin, who came from a family of distinguished colonial administrators, "I used to think meanly of the plumber; but how he shines beside the politician!"[3]
A contemporary review of the book noted:
For the many who take a personal interest in Mr. Stevenson's career the book will have an additional interest in the spectacle of a master of fiction struggling, on the whole successfully, with the trammels of fact.[4]
References
- ^ "R.L Stevenson on Samoa" (A contemporary book review.). The New York Times. 14 August 1892. Retrieved 23 January 2015.
- ^ "A Footnote to History: Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa, 1892". RLS website. Archived from the original on 9 January 2015. Retrieved 23 January 2015.
- ^ Letter to Sidney Colvin, April 17, 1893, Vailima Letters, Chapter XXVIII.
- ^ "Review of A Footnote to History: Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa by Robert Louis Stevenson". The Athenaeum (3385): 343–344. 10 September 1892.
External links
- Stevenson, Robert Louis (1892). A Footnote to History: Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa. London: Cassell; New York: Scribners, 1892: eBooks@Adelaide, The University of Adelaide Library. ISBN 9780824818579. OCLC 227258432. Archived from the original on 26 July 2010. Retrieved 23 January 2015.
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