 Fanny Stevenson Courtesy of RLS Collection, General Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University "I wandered away from Louis, gathering shells, but was recalled by a wild shout. I found Louis bending over a piece of the outer reed that he had broken off. From the face of both fractures innumerable worms were hanging like a sort of dreadful, thick fringe. The worms looked exactly like slender earthworms, more or less bleached, though some were quite earthworm colour. They lengthened out and contracted again until I felt quite sick and had to fly from the sight. Afterward, Louis broke other pieces of rock; one kind always contained worms; another kind, lighter in colour and firmer in texture, contained much fewer worms, also empty holes in the process of closing up; still others were close and hard and white, like marble. I got a good many shells, and after a fruitless search for some other way across the island than round the inland lagoon, I gave it up and we retraced our footsteps; that is, for a certain time, when we became lost, or as Louis indignantly put it: 'Not lost at all; we only could not find our way'"
(From the diary of Fanny Stevenson, 21 May 1890, The Cruise of the Janet Nichol: Among the South Sea Islands, A Diary by Mrs Robert Louis Stevenson, ed. by Roslyn Jolly [Sydney: University of New South Wales Press Ltd, 2004], p. 122)
Frances (Fanny) Matilda Van de Grift Osbourne (1840-1914) was RLS’s wife. She was born in Indianapolis to Jacob Vandegrift and Esther Thomas Keen.
In 1857, Fanny married Samuel Osbourne. The couple had three children: Isobel (Belle), born in 1858, Samuel (Lloyd), born in 1868, and Hervey, born in 1871. Sadly, Hervey died in 1876 after a long illness.
Fanny and Sam had a turbulent married life. They moved frequently within the US, and were often separated while Sam tried to make his fortune. Sam was often unfaithful and in 1875, Fanny left him.
She took the children to Europe where she and Belle pursued their art studies. In 1876 they arrived in Grez and it was here that she met RLS. A year later, Fanny and RLS had become lovers, but in 1878, Fanny and the children returned to her husband in California.
Against the wishes of his friends and family, RLS pursued Fanny in 1879. He travelled by train across America to California (he later described this harrowing journey in The Amateur Emigrant [1895]). Fanny divorced Sam, and she and RLS were married in San Francisco in May 1880. The couple honeymooned in Napa Valley and RLS later wrote about this in The Silverado Squatters (1884).
Although at first RLS’s parents disapproved of the marriage, they came to love Fanny and welcomed her as part of the family. RLS’s friends, however, were not persuaded, and many never came to like her. Not only was she ten years RLS’s senior and married when he met her, but they also didn’t approve of her mannerisms and influence on RLS. She was also fiercely protective of RLS’s health and discouraged friends from visiting when he was unwell. This interference was often resented and the marriage put a strain on many of RLS’s friendships.
Literary critics and biographers have also shown keen animosity towards Fanny, suggesting she took too much control over his life and writing. Fanny was, however, very proud of her husband’s work and collaborated with him on The Dynamiter (1885). She also claimed to have told RLS to rewrite an early draft of Jekyll and Hyde (1886) to make it the masterpiece it is today – however, there is no proof that this was the case.
Nevertheless, it seems clear that RLS valued his relationship with his wife. He dedicated Weir of Hermiston (1896) to her, thanking her for all of her help. His poem “My Wife”, is perhaps a telling description of RLS’s feelings for Fanny:
Trusty, dusky, vivid, true
With eyes of gold and bramble-dew
Steel-true and blade-straight
The great artificer
Made my mate.
Honour, anger, valour, fire;
A love that life could never tire;
Death quench or evil stir,
The mighty master
Gave to her.
Teacher, tender, comrade, wife,
A fellow-farer true through life,
Heart-whole and soul-free
The august father
Gave to me.
From Songs of Travel, The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Swanston edn, vol xiv (London: Chatto and Windus, 1911), pp. 235-36.
After RLS’s death in 1894, Fanny, Belle and Lloyd stayed at Vailima for a few months.
For the next couple of years, Fanny lived in various places in California and Hawaii, and travelled to Europe. She settled in Santa Barbara, CA in 1908. From her house, “Stonehenge”, she worked on the publication of the journal she kept on board the Janet Nicholl.
Fanny had two significant relationships after her husband’s death. Her first was with Gelett Burgess (1866-1951), who had designed the bronze panels for RLS’s tomb. Her second was with Edward (Ned) Salisbury Field (d. 1936), a journalist who was her companion and secretary until her death in 1914. Just six months later, Belle married Ned Field and together they took Fanny’s ashes to be buried with RLS’s.
Further Reading:
Fanny and Robert Stevenson: Our Samoan Adventure, ed. by Charles Neider (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1956)
- Introductory texts by RLS and Fanny Stevenson, including Fanny’s diary from 1890-93.
Fitzpatrick, Elayne Wareing, A Quixotic Companionship: Fanny and Robert Louis Stevenson, 2nd edn (Monterey: Old Monterey Preservation Society, 1997)
- 104 pages. Illustrated and available only through the COOPER STORE operated by Old Monterey Preservation Society on Alvarado Street, Monterey, CA, 93940. Tel: (+001) 831 649 7111.
Forster, Margaret, Good Wives? Mary, Fanny, Jennie and Me, 1845-2001 (London: Chatto, 2001)
- Includes a section on Fanny Stevenson as a wife.
Hinkley, Laura, The Stevensons: Louis and Fanny (New York: Hastings House, 1950)
Hubbard, Elbert, Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Osbourne (East Aurora, NY: Roycrofters, 1906)
Jolly, Roslyn, “Women’s Trading in Fanny Stevenson’s The Cruise of the Janet Nichol”, in Economies of Representation, 1790-2000: Colonialism and Commerce, ed. by Leigh Dale and Helen Gilbert (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), pp. 143-55
- A comparative study of the pragmatics of interaction in four trading encounters on South Sea islands involving Fanny Stevenson and the rhetoric of her narratives of them in Janet Nichol. Two involve failed communication, at Marakai (Gilbert Islands) and Penrhyn (Cook Islands), where Fanny observes apparent greed, uncivilized behaviour, suspicion and irrational hostility – which she does not try to relate to the inhabitants’ experience of being cheated by white traders, their incomprehension of money-based interactions and their fear and undying resentment of the depredations of duplicitous slave-traders. Two later encounters are more successful, at Natau and Nanoma (Ellice Islands): here Fanny interacted on board ship and with women in undefined trading/gift-giving transactions involving mutual respect. She has also now learnt to understand the fears and lack of trust of the natives. In depicting the native women ‘taking possession’ of her and treating her as a pet she inverts roles assigned by typical imperial narratives. At the same time, her narrative ensures her an ultimate controlling power to interpret and judge.
Lapierre, Alexander, Fanny Stevenson (Paris: Robert Lafont, 1993). English translation: Fanny Stevenson: Muse, Adventuress & Romantic Engima (Fourth Estate, 1995)
- - - , Fanny Stevenson: Entre passion et liberté (Paris: Robert Laffont, 1993)
- Portrays Fanny as an adventurous woman even without RLS’s influence. Inserts an excessive number of faked narrative scenes. See also Jean-Pierre Naugrette, Studies in Scottish Literature 28 (1993), pp. 250-53.
Lucas, E.V., The Colvins and Their Friends (London/New York: Methuen/Scribner’s, 1928)
- Includes several chapters on RLS and quotes many letters from Fanny Stevenson to Colvin and Fanny Sitwell.
Mackay, Margaret, The Violent Friend (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1969)
- - - , The Violent Friend: The Story of Mrs Robert Louis Stevenson (New York: Doubleday & Co., 1968) Also an abridged edition (London: J.M. Dent Sons Ltd., 1970)
Sanchez, Nellie Van de Grift, The Life of Mrs Robert Louis Stevenson (New York/London: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1920)
- Favourable portrait by Fanny’s sister; contains details of her early life not found elsewhere.
Stevenson, Fanny, The Cruise of the Janet Nichol (London/New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1915)
- The diary on which this is based is in the Silverado Museum.
- - - , The Cruise of the Janet Nichol among the South Sea Islands. A Diary (London: Chatto & Windus, 1924)
- - - , Stevenson, Fanny Van de Grift , The Cruise of the “Janet Nichol” among the South Sea Islands, ed. by Roslyn Jolly (Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2003). Also University of Washington Press, 2004.
- The text of the 1890 diary as revised by Fanny for publication in 1914, with the addition of a substantial introduction plus explanatory notes and recommended reading. Illustrated with photographs taken on the cruise, some previously published in the 1914 edition, many published here for the first time. German translation published as Kurs auf de Sudsee: Das Tagebuch der Mrs Robert Louis Stevenson (Munchen: Frederking & Thaler, 2005).
|
