ISLAND NIGHTS' ENTERTAINMENTS. [inscribed by a dedicatee]

1893. [inscribed by a dedicatee] Consisting of The Beach of Falesa / The Bottle Imp / The Isle of Voices. With Illustrations by Gordon Browne and W. Hatherell. London Paris & Melbourne: Cassell & Company, 1893. 16 pp ads dated September 1892 ("7G-9.92"). Original blue-grey cloth pictorially decorated in gilt.

First English Edition, published five days after the American, of these three tales from the South Pacific islands. This copy has several idiosyncracies, all related to the fact that this was in effect a colonial copy, initially sent to Australia. (1) The front paste-down bears the small book-label of Dymock's Book Arcade at 428 (truncated) George-st. in Sydney. (In 1879 William Dymock opened his bookstore on Market Street, and a few years later upsized to George Street; after his death the business passed to his sister Marjory Forsyth, and still is privately owned today with about fifty branches in Australia.) (2) In this copy the preliminary ad leaf (which lists seven RLS titles and their prices) is excised; this would have been done by the publisher (or possibly by Dymock) for copies being sent directly to a colony, since those prices would not apply. (3) The ad catalogue in this copy is dated September 1892, rather than the usual March 1893 (the book wasn't actually published domestically until April 1893); copies sent by sea to colonies were often among the earliest bound up, to offset the time spent at sea. And most importantly, (4) -- see this copy's Provenance, below. This is a very good-plus copy (volume a bit askew and endpapers cracking, both as usual; minor rubbing at the extremities). Beinecke 577; Princeton 53A [copy1]. Provenance: In addition to the Dymock booklabel, this copy bears (on the half-title) the inked inscription "To Capt. Davis | with Jack Buckland's | compliments." John Wilberforce "Tin Jack" Buckland (1864-1897) is named as one of the "Three Old Shipmates among the Islands" to whom this book is dedicated, on the leaf following the title page. Buckland was an island trader who would make some money sailing around the South Pacific, then go to Sydney and blow it all; his actual income was 700 a year from a trust fund established from the sale of the home of the elderly couple who had taken him in, after his own family returned to England without him when he was just nine. In April 1890 Buckland had met the Stevenson family when he and they were passengers on the trading steamer "Janet Nicoll" (Fanny wrote a published journal about this voyage). Buckland was acknowledged by RLS to have been the inspiration for the character "Tommy Haddon" in his 1892 book THE WRECKER; another character inspired by Buckland makes an appearance in this very book -- "young Buncombe" in the tale "The Beach at Falesa" (see pp 34ff). In early 1894, Buckland spent three weeks with the Stevenson family at Vailima on Samoa; RLS would die that December. "Tin Jack" took his own life in 1897, at age 32 or 33, when he learned that the trustee in charge of his money had defrauded the trust of all its funds. As for the "Capt. Davis" of Buckland's inscription, this was most likely Edward Henry Meggs Davis (1846-1929), who in 1887 was promoted to Captain and in 1891 was given command of the HMS Royalist. In 1891-1892, Davis and the HMS Royalist conducted a survey among the New Hebrides, New Caledonia, Territory of Papua, the Solomon Islands, the Gilbert Islands, the Marshall Islands and the Ellice Islands -- in short, many of the same places Jack Buckland was visiting, those same years. (Inventory #: 15601)