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STEVENSON, ROBERT LOUIS The Master of Ballantrae
Harmondsworth, Penguin Books. 1984, First edition thus. (ISBN: 0140070842) Mass Market Paperback , 12mo - over 6¾" - 7¾" tall. Movie Tie-in, First published, 1889. Good+. Tight, clean copy. Light edgewear to wraps. Browning. Published on the occasion of a tv serial. Actor Michael York on front cover. "In December 1887 Stevenson wrote that he had 'fallen head over heels into a new tale .. a most seizing tale; there are some fantastic elements; the most is a dead genuine human problem - human tragedy, I should say rather.' The Master of Ballantrae opens in the old Scottish house of Durisdeer, ancestral home of the Duries, a family divided by the Jacobite rising of 1745. Its adventure draws in sea voyages, piracy, buried treasure, magic and nightmare, and centres on the fatal rivalry between two brothers, James and Henry, and the wealthy and beautiful kinswoman who loves one brother but marries the other. 'The Master is all I know of the devil,' Stevenson confessed, and the satanic, virile, seductive figure of James Durie dominates the novel. The family servant Mackellar narrates The Master of Ballantrae and his divided loyalties dramatize the question of 'mastery'. / Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) was born in Edinburgh. In the brief span of forty-four years, dogged by poor health, he made an enormous contribution to English literature with his novels, poetry, and essays. The son of upper-middle-class parents, he was the victim of lung trouble from birth, and spent a sheltered childhood surrounded by constant care. The balance of his life was taken up with his unremitting devotion to work, and a search for a cure to his illness that took him all over the world. His travel essays were publihsed widely, and his short fiction was gathered in many volumes. His first full-length work of fiction, Treasure Island, was published in 1883 and brought him great fame, which only increased with the publication of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886). He followed with the Scottish romances Kidnapped (1886) and The Master of Ballantrae (1889). In 1888 he set out with his family for the South Seas, traveling to the leper colony at Molokai, and finally settling in Samoa, where he died." - Publisher. Good.
Offered for US$ 3.00 by: Left Coast Books - Book number: 014421
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