Other editions of book The Wrecker

*This Book is annotated (it contains a detailed biography of the author). *An active Table of Contents has been added by the publisher for a better customer experience. *This book has been checked and corrected for spelling errors.The Wrecker (1892) is a novel written by Robert Louis Stevenson in collaboration with his stepson Lloyd Osbourne.The story is a "sprawling, episodic adventure story, a comedy of brash manners and something of a detective mystery". It 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. 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".

The tale represents the only occasion on which Stevenson was drawn to adopt the mystery type of novel in which the reader is carried forward by the incidents surrounding a secret which is kept to the last. As explained in the Epilogue, familiarly addressed to his friend, Will H. Low, he had aimed at giving greater realism to this form of story by a more gradual approach to the essence of the yarn. The reader is allowed first to live with the characters for a while instead of stepping with them into their adventures straight on his introduction to them. Hence the first half-dozen chapters, with their scenes in Paris and Edinburgh, are almost without bearing on the incidents afterwards developed, and might well be cited against Stevenson's doctrine that the opening of a story is of a piece with its end. Evidently the Prologue, anticipating Dodd's adventures, is used as a device to cast unity over the whole in something of the manner of Mr. Conrad.

This vintage book contains Robert Louis Stevenson's 1892 novel, "The Wrecker". It is a 'sprawling, episodic adventure story, a comedy of brash manners and something of a detective mystery' that centres round the abandoned wreck of the 'Flying Stud' at Midway Island. The gripping mystery is solved using strange clues hidden inside a stamp collection. A fantastic example of Stevenson's masterful style, "The Wrecker" is highly recommended for lovers of exciting mystery fiction. Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson (1850 - 1894) was a famous Scottish essayist, novelist, poet, and travel writer. Some of his best known works include "Treasure Island" and "The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde". Many vintage texts such as this are increasingly scarce and expensive, and it is with this in mind that we are republishing this book now, in an affordable, high-quality, modern edition. It comes complete with a specially commissioned biography of the author.

The Wrecker (1892) is a novel written by Robert Louis Stevenson in collaboration with his stepson Lloyd Osbourne. The story is about a "sprawling, episodic adventure story, a comedy of brash manners and something of a detective mystery". It 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.

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

"I never heard you talk so much nonsense, Loudon," said the host. "Well, it seemed to me there was sulfur in the air, so I talked for talking," returned the other. "But it was none of it nonsense." "Do you mean to say it was true?" cried Havens, -- "that about the opium and the wreck, and the blackmailing and the man who became your friend?" "Every last word of it," said Loudon. "You seem to have been seeing life," returned the other. "Yes, it's a queer yarn," said his friend; "if you think you would like, I'll tell it you." Here follows the yarn of Loudon Dodd. . . .

The story is a "sprawling, episodic adventure story, a comedy of brash manners and something of a detective mystery". It 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. 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: 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.

Tai-o-hae. His eyes were open, staring down the bay. He saw the mountains droop, as they approached the entrance, and break down in cliffs :the surf boil white round the two sentinel islets; and between, on the narrow bight of blue horizon, Ua-pu upraise the ghost of her pinnacled mountain-tops. But his mind would take no account of these familiar features; as he dodged in and out along the frontier line of sleep and waking, memory would serve him with broken fragments of the past: brown faces and white, of skipper and shipmate, king and chief, would arise before his mind and vanish ;he would recall old voyages, old landfalls in the hour of dawn ;he would hear again the drums beat for a man-eating festival; perhaps he would summon up the form of that island princess for the love of whom he had submitted his body to the cruel hands of the tattooer, and now sat on the lumber, at the pier-end of Tai-o-hae, so strange a figure of a European. Or perhaps, from yet further back, sounds and scents of England and his childhood might assail him: the merry clamour of cathedral bells, the broom upon the foreland, the song of the river on the weir. It is bold water at the mouth of the bay; you can steer a ship about either sentinel, close enough to toss a biscuit on the rocks. Thus it chanced that, as the tattooed man sat dozing and dreaming, he was startled into wakefulness and animation by the appearance of a flying jib beyond the western islet. Two more headsails followed; and before the tattooed man had scrambled to his feet, a topsail schooner, of some hundred tons, had luffed about the sentinel, and was standing up the bay, close-hauled. The sleeping city awakened by enchantment.(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)About the Publisher Forgotten Books is a publisher of historical writings, such as: Philosophy, Classics, Science, Religion, History, Folklore and My