The Wrong Box - Softcover

Stevenson, Robert Louis; Osborne, Lloyd

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1410100340 ISBN 13: 9781410100344

Publisher: Fredonia Books (NL), 2002

Synopsis

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.

About this title

About the Author

Novelist and essayist, was born at Edinburgh, the son of Thomas Stevenson, a distinguished civil engineer. His health was extremely delicate. He was destined for the engineering profession, in which his family had for two generations been eminent, but having neither inclination nor physical strength for it, he in 1871 exchanged it for law, and was called to the Bar in 1875, but never practised.

Edition details

• Publisher: Fredonia Books (NL)
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1410100340
• ISBN 13: 9781410100344
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 352