Beschreibung:

TATE, Robert Ward (1864-1938). ‘Vailima’, typescript description of the journey from Apia to Vailima, illustrated with 31 photographs, [Apia, Samoa], 1919. 15 typescript pages, 260 x 202mm, with photographs chiefly pasted onto facing pages, 29 photographs (80 x 135mm and smaller) depicting scenes from Apia, the road through Samoa to Vailima, and Vailima, including Robert Louis Stevenson’s house, two larger photographs (187 x 232mm) depicting Robert Louis Stevenson and a party at Vailima and Stevenson’s tomb. Original tapa cloth-covered boards (top board detached). Provenance : Presentation inscription from R. W. Tate to a Mrs Terhune, 24 June 1919, along with an autograph letter signed from the same, Government House, Apia, 24 June 1919, thanking her for a visit to Pago [Pago] and extending an invitation to visit Vailima. From the beginning of the 20th century, the Samoan village of Vailima has been inextricably linked with the memory of Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894); the Scottish writer spent his final years living among the extraordinary natural beauty of the island described here by the New Zealander Robert Ward Tate, First Civil Administrator of Samoa. Ward’s illustrated typescript traces for the reader a colourful journey from first arrival into the port at Apia, through the bustling town and out onto the path to Vailima, lined with kapok and coconut trees; we follow the twists and turns of the road and observe the life alongside it, vividly conjured by Ward and illustrated by the accompanying photographs, before reaching the village itself, where both Stevenson’s first cottage and grander second residence are described as standing in the shadow of Mount Vaea, on top of which is found Stevenson’s tomb.