The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 19

In Short

This volume collects two distinct works: the gritty, atmospheric Pacific thriller The Ebb-Tide, written with Lloyd Osbourne, and the unfinished, towering Scottish novel Weir of Hermiston. While the former follows three degraded outcasts seeking fortune on a cursed schooner, the latter examines the bitter, tragic relationship between a severe hanging judge and his sensitive son. Both works explore the nature of morality and the inescapable weight of one’s past. These stories have endured through their stark psychological realism and a prose style that remains as sharp as a blade.

The Story

In The Ebb-Tide, three desperate men—Davis, Herrick, and the venomous Huish—find themselves destitute on a tropical beach. They are "beachcombers," social rejects clinging to the fringes of survival. A chance opportunity presents itself in the form of a derelict schooner, the Farallone, which they seize with the hope of smuggling its cargo of champagne to Sydney. However, the voyage quickly descends into a nightmare of incompetence, heavy drinking, and dark secrets. They eventually stumble upon a mysterious, remote island ruled by Attwater, a strange, fanatical pearl-fisher who exerts a terrifying, god-like control over his tiny domain. What begins as a desperate bid for fortune turns into a claustrophobic psychological duel, ending in a violent, bloody confrontation that shatters the remnants of the trio’s humanity.

Weir of Hermiston shifts to the grey, atmospheric moors of Scotland. It centers on Archie Weir, a young man of refined, intellectual temperament who is constantly at odds with his father, the Lord Justice-Clerk. The elder Weir is a man of "Roman virtues," a harsh, unyielding judge known for his brutal efficiency in sentencing criminals to the gallows. The gulf between father and son becomes an abyss when Archie, disgusted by his father’s callousness, publicly criticizes a death sentence. To punish him and force him into a more practical life, his father exiles him to the family’s lonely estate at Hermiston. There, amidst the damp hills and the "clan spirit" of the local folk, Archie encounters the younger Kirstie, a vibrant, spirited girl who captures his heart. Their budding, clandestine romance is shadowed by the weight of local gossip, the interference of a treacherous "friend" named Frank Innes, and the looming, inevitable clash with the elder Weir’s rigid world. The story cuts off mid-development, leaving the reader with a profound sense of the tragedy that was clearly destined to follow.

How It Unfolds

The beach of broken men Three outcasts, hungry and humiliated, find a path back to relevance when they take command of a mysterious schooner. The atmosphere is thick with tropical decay, setting a tone of impending doom for the ill-fated crew.

A voyage of shadows As the Farallone drifts through the Pacific, the incompetence of the captain and the growing resentment between the men create a pressure cooker of tension. The discovery of the island and the encounter with the enigmatic Attwater shift the narrative from a survival story to a dark morality play.

The judge and the son The scene shifts to the harsh, wind-swept moorlands, establishing the titanic conflict between the terrifying Lord Hermiston and the sensitive, alienated Archie. Their domestic struggle is not merely personal; it represents an ancient, irreconcilable clash between the letter of the law and the spirit of human feeling.

The trap of tradition Archie’s exile to the countryside exposes him to the rural customs and ancient bloodlines of the Elliott family. The narrative rhythm slows to capture the beauty of the landscape and the sudden, blooming intensity of his love for Kirstie.

The impending wreck As external pressures mount and the "friend" Frank Innes begins to stir trouble, the story marches toward an inevitable catastrophe. The final pages resonate with the weight of generations, leaving the reader to contemplate a tragedy interrupted by the author’s sudden death.

The People

Davis, the captain of the Farallone, is a man desperately clutching at the shreds of his authority, hoping to reclaim a lost sense of purpose through crime. Herrick, perhaps the most self-aware of the trio, acts as a disillusioned observer, constantly battling his own cowardice and his lingering, haunting sense of shame. Huish, small and venomous, serves as the catalyst for the group’s descent, driven by a "lark" that is actually a desire to destroy those he envies.

In the Scottish moors, the Lord Justice-Clerk stands as a monolith of authority—a man who has completely subsumed his humanity into the cold, mechanical practice of the law. His son, Archie, begins as a timid intellectual but is forced to evolve through the pain of rejection and the intensity of his love. Kirstie is the emotional heart of the latter story; she is a woman of deep roots and fierce, uninhibited feeling, standing in direct contrast to the cold, legalistic world Archie tries to flee. Each figure is bound by their past, whether it is the "gallows-birds" of Kirstie’s ancestry or the legal reputation that defines the elder Weir.

In Its Own Voice

"The beachcombers beat their inglorious retreat along the shore; Herrick first, his face dark with blood, his knees trembling under him with the hysteria of rage."

The trio is forced to flee after a humiliating encounter with a local official, marking their low point as outcasts.

"He conceived the ambition to be such another; and, when the day came for him to choose a profession, it was in emulation of Lord Glenalmond, not of Lord Hermiston, that he chose the Bar."

Archie looks for a mentor figure who possesses the humanity his own father lacks, setting the stage for his lifelong conflict.

"Everything's alive," he said; and again cries it aloud, "thank God, everything's alive!"

Archie finds a brief moment of profound connection and joy while walking through the spring landscape of his exile.

What It's Really About

Both stories grapple with the question of whether a person can ever truly escape their nature or their past. In The Ebb-Tide, the characters are defined by their failures, and they seek to use the isolation of the sea to reset their lives, only to find that their inherent weaknesses travel with them. Weir of Hermiston explores the tension between hereditary destiny and individual conscience. It asks how much of our identity is inherited—from our family’s "gallows-bird" history or our parents’ rigid morality—and whether we can forge a path that is uniquely our own. It is a meditation on the cruelty of institutions and the enduring, sometimes fatal, power of love to disrupt our settled lives.

Why Read It Today

These works offer a masterclass in atmosphere and psychological tension. You will love them if you appreciate prose that refuses to waste a word, yet paints a vivid picture of both the humid, sun-bleached Pacific and the cool, damp heather of Scotland. Readers should be prepared for the thick, authentic Scots dialect in the latter half, which provides a rich, grounded texture to the dialogue but requires patience to navigate. The glossary provided in the text is an essential tool, but the musicality of the language eventually becomes intuitive.

The tragedy of this volume is that Weir of Hermiston stops mid-stride. However, reading it is an exercise in witnessing a genius at the height of his powers. You are not just reading a book; you are looking at the final, brilliant sketches of a writer who understood the darkness of the human heart better than most. The story stays with you not because it is finished, but because the characters feel so vividly, painfully alive. It is a haunting experience to stand at the edge of that narrative cliff, wondering what would have happened next, while realizing that the beauty of the prose is its own justification.