The Wrong Box E-Book

Robert Louis Stevenson

• Herausgeber: Robert Louis Stevenson
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

The Wrong Box is a black comedy novel co-written by Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne, first published in 1889. The story is about two brothers who are the last two surviving members of a tontine. The book is notable for being the first of three novels that Stevenson co-wrote with Osbourne, who was his stepson. The others were The Wrecker (1892) and The Ebb-Tide (1894). Osbourne wrote the first draft of the novel late in 1887 (then called The Finsbury Tontine), Stevenson revised it in 1888 (then called A Game of Bluff) and again in 1889 when it was finally called The Wrong Box. A movie adaptation was produced in 1966, and a musical in 2002.

Leseprobe

The Wrong Box

by

Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

Preface

Chapter

In Which Morris Suspects

In Which Morris takes Action

The Lecturer at Large

The Magistrate in the Luggage Van

Mr Gideon Forsyth and the Gigantic Box

The Tribulations of Morris: Part the First

In Which William Dent Pitman takes Legal Advice

In Which Michael Finsbury Enjoys a Holiday

Glorious Conclusion of Michael Finsbury’s Holiday

Gideon Forsyth and the Broadwood Grand

The Maestro Jimson

Positively the Last Appearance of the Broadwood Grand

The Tribulations of Morris: Part the Second

William Bent Pitman Hears of Something to his Advantage

The Return of the Great Vance

Final Adjustment of the Leather Business

Preface

‘Nothing like a little judicious levity,’ says Michael Finsbury in the text: nor can any better excuse be found for the volume in the reader’s hand. The authors can but add that one of them is old enough to be ashamed of himself, and the other young enough to learn better.

R. L. S. L. O.

Chapter I

In Which Morris Suspects

How very little does the amateur, dwelling at home at ease, comprehend the labours and perils of the author, and, when he smilingly skims the surface of a work of fiction, how little does he consider the hours of toil, consultation of authorities, researches in the Bodleian, correspondence with learned and illegible Germans — in one word, the vast scaffolding that was first built up and then knocked down, to while away an hour for him in a railway train! Thus I might begin this tale with a biography of Tonti — birthplace, parentage, genius probably inherited from his mother, remarkable instance of precocity, etc — and a complete treatise on the system to which he bequeathed his name. The material is all beside me in a pigeon-hole, but I scorn to appear vainglorious. Tonti is dead, and I never saw anyone who even pretended to regret him; and, as for the tontine system, a word will suffice for all the purposes of this unvarnished narrative.

A number of sprightly youths (the more the merrier) put up a certain sum of money, which is then funded in a pool under trustees; coming on for a century later, the proceeds are fluttered for a moment in the face of the last survivor, who is probably deaf, so that he cannot even hear of his success — and who is certainly dying, so that he might just as well have lost. The peculiar poetry and even humour of the scheme is now apparent, since it is one by which nobody concerned can possibly profit; but its fine, sportsmanlike character endeared it to our grandparents.

When Joseph Finsbury and his brother Masterman were little lads in white-frilled trousers, their father — a well-to-do merchant in Cheapside — caused them to join a small but rich tontine of seven-and-thirty lives. A thousand pounds was the entrance fee; and Joseph Finsbury can remember to this day the visit to the lawyer’s, where the members of the tontine — all children like himself — were assembled together, and sat in turn in the big office chair, and signed their names with the assistance of a kind old gentleman in spectacles and Wellington boots. He remembers playing with the children afterwards on the lawn at the back of the lawyer’s house, and a battle-royal that he had with a brother tontiner who had kicked his shins. The sound of war called forth the lawyer from where he was dispensing cake and wine to the assembled parents in the office, and the combatants were separated, and Joseph’s spirit (for he was the smaller of the two) commended by the gentleman in the Wellington boots, who vowed he had been just such another at the same age. Joseph wondered to himself if he had worn at that time little Wellingtons and a little bald head, and when, in bed at night, he grew tired of telling himself stories of sea-fights, he used to dress himself up as the old gentleman, and entertain other little boys and girls with cake and wine.