Robert Louis Stevenson exhibit opens in Edinburgh this week
The National Library of Scotland, in collaboration with the University of Edinburgh’s Remediating Stevenson project, will unveil a new exhibition examining the later years of Robert Louis Stevenson’s life and his Pacific legacy.
This free exhibition, which will open ahead of Robert Louis Stevenson Day on 13 November, reconsiders a writer who arrived in the Pacific as a colonial figure, but became locally beloved as ‘Tusitala’, teller of tales.
Opening on Friday 8 November, ‘Tusitala: Pacific Perspectives on Robert Louis Stevenson’ reflects on Stevenson’s Pacific legacy, considering the ways in which the Pacific and its peoples had a profound impact on Stevenson and his writing. Displaying original letters from the Library’s collections, alongside photographs taken at the time, the exhibition considers how Stevenson lived in and navigated Sāmoan culture as both welcomed guest and colonial presence.
The display will also feature new creative works, inspired by Stevenson and his Pacific stories, produced by Sāmoan, Hawaiian and British artists, poets, and filmmakers on the Remediating Stevenson project.
Dr Colin McIlroy, Manuscripts Curator said: “Robert Louis Stevenson spent the last six years of his life in the Pacific. This exhibition reflects on Stevenson’s reputation among the people of Sāmoa, Hawai'i, and the other Pacific islands. Displaying original Stevenson letters and images alongside new works inspired by his life and writing, we hear the voices of the Pacific echoing through these new adaptations and tributes to one of Scotland’s literary greats.”
The Remediating Stevenson project leader, Professor Michelle Keown from the University of Edinburgh, said: “We are delighted that the National Library of Scotland is hosting this exhibition, which explores an under-represented element of R.L. Stevenson’s life and legacy. The exhibition, like the ‘Remediating Stevenson’ project, explores the cross-cultural friendships and dialogues Stevenson established with Pacific Islanders in his final years, and includes a suite of new works by Pacific creative practitioners inspired by Stevenson’s fiction.”
Edinburgh-born Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) is one of the most famous writers Scotland has ever produced, best known for literary classics such as ‘Treasure Island’ (1883), ‘Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’ (1886), and ‘Kidnapped’ (1886). He set sail from San Francisco in June 1888 and spent the next two years voyaging across the Pacific Ocean with his family, before eventually settling in Vailima, on the Sāmoan island of Upolu, where he lived until his death aged 44.
The display is part of the University of Edinburgh’s Remediating Stevenson project, supported by the UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council. The University will host a symposium in celebration of Robert Louis Stevenson Day on 13 November, reflecting on Stevenson’s Pacific writing, travels, and cross-cultural friendships. A further sold-out event, focused on Stevenson in Sāmoa, will be hosted by the National Library of Scotland in that evening in Edinburgh.
‘Tusitala: Pacific Perspectives on Robert Louis Stevenson’ opens on Friday 8 November at National Library of Scotland on George IV Bridge, Edinburgh. Entry is free.
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Hannah Knox
Notes to editors
About Robert Louis Stevenson
Edinburgh-born Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) is best known for literary classics such as ‘Treasure Island’ (1883), ‘Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’ (1886), ‘A Child’s Garden of Verses’ (1885) and ‘Kidnapped’ (1886). Stevenson is one of the most famous writers Scotland has ever produced.
Hugely successful in his lifetime, Stevenson shocked the British literary establishment when he and his family settled in Sāmoa following his Pacific voyages of 1888–1890. During his time in Sāmoa he published several narratives and poems set in the Pacific, as well as Catriona (1893) and Weir of Hermiston (1896), novels set in Scotland. In 1894 he died aged 44 at his home at Vailima, on the Sāmoan island of Upolu.
About Remediating Stevenson
Remediating Stevenson is an interdisciplinary project led by the University of Edinburgh.
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), the 'Remediating Stevenson' research project explores the relevance of Robert Louis Stevenson's Pacific fiction to contemporary communities in Scotland, Sāmoa and Hawai'i. Project activities and outputs include arts education workshops; newly commissioned graphic adaptations and poetry; a documentary film; and exhibitions at the Pitt Rivers Museum (Oxford) and the National Library of Scotland.
Over the course of the three-year project (2022 to 2025), a research team from the Universities of Edinburgh and Chester, in partnership with an international team of creative practitioners and stakeholders, explored the legacies of Stevenson's Pacific writing, specifically the three short stories published in his 1893 collection ‘Island Nights' Entertainments’.
In addition to producing new creative works by project artists, poets and filmmakers, the 'Remediating Stevenson' team is working in partnership with educators, non-profit organisations, artists and writers on a multimodal programme of community-based participatory arts research in Scotland, Sāmoa and Hawai'i.
The project’s Principal Investigator is Professor Michelle Keown of the School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures, working alongside Edinburgh colleagues Dr Shari Sabeti (Moray House School of Education and Sport), Dr Alice Kelly (Literatures Languages and Cultures), and Professor Simon Grennan (University of Chester).