Other editions of book The Wrong Box

The Wrong Box is one of Robert Louis Stevenson's strangest works. Written with his stepson Lloyd Osborne, it is a masterpiece of black comedy, turning on mistaken identity, the disappearance of a corpse, and several makeshift coffins. V. S. Pritchett described it as "a farce that slips down the throat with the nicety of an oyster," and, according to E. F. Benson, it is "perhaps the most superb extravaganza in the language." In this intriguing work, the Finsbury family has long been involved in a Tontine - a scheme in which subscribers invest money in a fund which them falls to the last survivor. Now there are only two aged uncles between Morris and John Finsbury and their fortune. A railway accident appears to dispose of one, and then the farce begins. In this eccentric and brilliantly plotted story, the authors not only extended the boundaries of good taste, but also satirized the popular Railway Novel genre, perplexing many Victorian readers.

Stevenson was a Scottish essayist, poet, novelist, and travel writer. His most famous works are Kidnapped, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and Treasure Island. Stevenson collaborated with his stepson Lloyd Osbourne on this novel. In the Wrong Box a box containing a corps is passed among an assortment of characters. There is the body of a man inside, but it is not who they think is in the box. Actually the man who they think is the corpse is still very much alive. Much of the book contains the inner dialogue of the characters. The book has an ironic tone and is quite fun to read. This is a perfect book for a long winter's night in front of a fireplace, or a vacation spot on the beach.

Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson (13 November 1850 – 3 December 1894) was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer. His most famous works are Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. A literary celebrity during his lifetime, Stevenson now ranks among the 26 most translated authors in the world. His works have been admired by many other writers, including Jorge Luis Borges, Ernest Hemingway, Rudyard Kipling, Marcel Schwob, Vladimir Nabokov, J. M. Barrie, and G. K. Chesterton, who said of him that he "seemed to pick the right word up on the point of his pen, like a man playing spillikins." -wikipedia

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