The Merry Men, and Other Tales and Fables

The Merry Men, and Other Tales and Fables by Robert Louis Stevenson is shown here in a tenth edition, London, 1904. A note before the contents lists magazines where six of the tales first appeared, among them the Cornhill Magazine and the Court and Society Review. The dedication is addressed to Lady Taylor and signed at Skerryvore, Bournemouth. The title tale has chapters named Eilean Aros, What the Wreck Had Brought to Aros, Land and Sea in Sandag Bay and The Gale.

In one passage a narrator tells Mary that he no longer knows the place at Aros; she says she wishes the things that came by the wreck had gone down into the sea, and his uncle appears in the doorway. Another passage is written in Scots dialect: Mr. Soulis finds poor Janet dead in a room, locks the door and stands at the foot of the stairs, and hears a step upstairs. In a third passage Casimir tells Desprez that he was telegraphed to leave his business and come down to find a thief, in a scene with Anastasie and Jean-Marie.