Cirrus

The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

Latest Issues

VIEW ALL ISSUES (C712299)

AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'A reception clerk at Sydney's prestigious Victoria Hotel in King Street would long remember Robert Louis Stevenson's arrival in Australia. Not recognising the skeletal, badly dressed man in front of him as the famous author, the clerk allotted the man and his wife a small room on the fourth floor of the hotel, instead of the requested suite of rooms on the first floor. Stevenson had had problems with hotel staff before and wasn't going to put up with this indignity. He took one look at the dingy, carpetless room up too many sets of stairs, and rushed back to reception, where he treated the unfortunate clerk to one of his famous 'purples', and explosion of words and fury that rapidly attracted a crowd of staff and guests.

Notes

Includes portrait of Robert Louis Stevenson from the original by Percy Spence.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Appears in:

y Brief Encounters : Literary Travellers in Australia 1836-1939 Susannah Fullerton , Sydney : Pan Macmillan Australia , 2009 Z1592655 2009 selected work biography travel Abstract
'Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, countless distinguished writers made the long and arduous voyage across the seas to Australia. They came to give lecture tours and make money, to sort out difficult children sent here to be out of the way; for health, for science, to escape demanding spouses back home, or simply to satisfy a sense of adventure.

In 1890, for example, Robert Louis Stevenson and his wife Fanny arrived at Circular Quay after a dramatic sea voyage only to be refused entry at the Victoria, one of Sydney's most elegant hotels. Stevenson threw a tantrum, but was forced to go to a cheaper, less fussy establishment. Next day, the Victoria's manager, recognising the famous author from a picture in the paper, rushed to find Stevenson and beg him to return. He did not.

In Brief Encounters, renowned author and speaker Susannah Fullerton examines a diverse array of writers including Charles Darwin, Rudyard Kipling, Stevenson, Anthony Trollope, Mark Twain, Arthur Conan Doyle, DH Lawrence, Joseph Conrad, HG Wells, Agatha Christie and Jack London to discover what they did when they got here, what their opinion was of Australia and Australians, how the public and media reacted to them, and how their future works were shaped or influenced by this country.' (Publisher's website)
Sydney : Pan Macmillan Australia , 2009
(
2009
)
pg. 101-130