Lot Details
Lot 181
STEVENSON, ROBERT LOUIS Musical manuscript in Stevenson's holograph, unsigned.
Four pages (two conjugate ff.) on thin paper, each page with twelve hand-drawn staves in blue-black ink, the first headed "Drink to me only" (the text of which, not written out here, is by Ben Jonson). Two other works are identified in Stevenson's hand: "Hohenfriedbergen"[?] and "The Carnival of Venice." Paper toned, some minor soiling, short tear to the fore-margin of each leaf. Housed in a very worn card sleeve, with which it appears to have been long associated.
Recorded at auction at The Walpole Galleries in New York, February 16, 1917, this seems to have been sold (much later, presumably with an intervening owner) by the Bodley Book Shop in Chelsea, New York, in 1943 (letters enclosed). Stevenson began his study of music quite late, beginning with the piano at age 36, and became an accomplished player of the penny whistle and flageolet (the first work here is scored for two flageolets and a shell ocarina). He likely learned the instrument from Lloyd Osborne, and clearly this piece was intended to be performed by a trio; the two flageolets intended were likely Stevenson and Osborne. From the notational style, this was written out after 1888. Stevenson's music is largely in institutional holdings (other versions of "Drink to Me" are at the Library of Congress and Washington University in St. Louis and are apparently datable to 1889). The same is true for the dating of "Carnival of Venice". See http://robert-louis-stevenson.org/wp-content/uploads/historical-arrangement-of-rls-music-ms.pdf for an excellent and highly detailed history of Stevenson's compositions.
C The Library of Duncan Cranford
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