Having lived most of my life separated from my books, either by living in different countries or by living in different cities, not having access to my books, there are many classics for which I have double, or even triple copies. In the case of Robert Louis Stevenson have have multiple copies of his shorter prose in different editions, sometimes bought unwittingly, unaware I already had a version, and sometimes because no other edition was available. This Canongate Classics (3) edition, is probably one of the first collections of shorter prose of Stevenson that I bought in Amsterdam in 1998.

This edition consist of three parts:
LETTERS
IN THE SOUTH SEAS
FICTION

The first part consists of circa 30 pages of correspondence, between 1888-1891, just ten letters. The second part consists of nine short stories, set in the South Seas, together about 80 pages. The third part is made up of three novellas, "The bottle imp", "The isle of voices" and "The beach of falesa".

As I had already read the three novellas, in this edition, I merely read the letters and the short stories. One might wonder what one gets from just 10 letters, but one should remember that Stevenson died young and only lived in the South Seas for a few years. The letters are evocative, and will be well remembered when one goes on to read In the South Seas or other (auto)biographical works. I should therefore say that this selection of letters is worthwhile.

Perhaps one reason for confusion when buying or choosing what to read by Stevenson, is that many of his books of collections of his works have similar titles. It is very confusing that in this edition Part 2, consisting of nine short stories is given the title "In the South Seas" which is the title of another autobioraphical work of Stevenson consisting of essays in the form of personal anecdotes, historical accounts, and anthropological observations, In the South Seas, published posthumously in 1896.

Part 3, simply named "Fiction" ought to be entitled Island Nights' Entertainments, the title of the original, first book publication of these three short stories in 1893. ( )