Lot Details
Lot 182
STEVENSON, ROBERT LOUIS Father Damien: An Open Letter to the Reverend Dr. Hyde of Honolulu.
Sydney: [Privately printed], 1890. First edition (reprinted from The Scots Observer), issued (according to Edmund Gosse) in an edition of 25 copies. Publisher's wire-stitched wrappers, headed "With Mr. R. L. Stevenson's Compliments" housed in a cloth chemise and slipcase. 8 1/4 x 5 1/4 inches (21 x 13.5 cm); 32 pp., inclusive of wrappers (the text extends to the recto and verso of the back wrapper); small textual corrections in Stevenson's hand on pp. 7 , 13 and 20.Old folds from mailing (as usual), the spine fragile and starting to separate, marginal tear to the rear wrapper and a small stain, dust soil, but in all a respectable copy of a rare and extremely fragile item. Initials ("L. v. F") neatly penned at head of wrapper, possibly in Stevenson's hand, presumably the recipient.
Stevenson wrote in protest to a letter by the Reverend Charles McEwen Hyde, a Presbyterian minister in Honolulu to the Reverend H. B. Gage of San Francisco, who published Hyde's letter in a San Francisco newspaper. Among other things, it accused Damien (unjustly) of immorality and of "coarseness." Stevenson's counter-argument suggests that Hyde's list of Father Damien de Veuster's supposed faults should instead be considered as a list of virtues, in the context of his work with the lepers; it is a brilliant polemic. He writes to Hyde "If that world at all remember you, on the day when Damien of Molokai shall be named a Saint, it will be in virtue of one work: your letter to the Reverend H. B. Gage." This was prescient; Damon was canonized in 2009. Prideaux 31.
C The Library of Duncan Cranford
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