The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 21

Stevenson's third novel has been unfairly overshadowed by Treasure Island and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, yet it contains some of his most psychologically complex work. The Story of a Lie follows Dick Naseby, a young man whose sharp perceptions hide a dangerous talent for self-deception. In Paris, he falls under the influence of Peter Van Tromp, a charismatic but exploitative painter known as The Admiral, whose attention Dick craves despite its manipulative undertones. When Dick returns home to England, a politically charged letter sparks an irreversible rift with his father, forcing him to choose between family loyalty and personal freedom. The arrival of Esther Van Tromp, the painter's daughter, complicates everything: Dick must navigate genuine feeling for her against the web of lies that surrounds them both. What emerges is a sharp examination of how we construct narratives about ourselves, and the cost of maintaining those fictions. Stevenson writes with uncomfortable clarity about the ways love, ambition, and identity can become indistinguishable from their opposites.