The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 17
The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 17
Stevenson's third novel is a radical departure from his adventure fiction: a quiet, psychologically acute romance set in the fictional German principality of Grunewald. Prince Otto, a dreamy, indecisive monarch, has grown distant from his wife Serafina, their marriage eroded by court obligations and mutual resentment. When a political conspiracy threatens the throne, the couple must rediscover each other or lose everything. What follows is not swashbuckling drama but something rarer and riskier: a dismantling of royal facades, an honest reckoning with love's labor lost. Stevenson wrote this as a deliberate experiment in psychological realism, subverting the adventure narratives that made his name. The result is a surprisingly modern story about the performative nature of power and the terrifying vulnerability of truly seeing another person. It failed commercially on publication and has often been overlooked, yet it contains some of Stevenson's finest prose and his most mature understanding of human intimacy.
