STEVENSON’S PYJAMAS

Extract

Introduction

BURIED AMONG ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON’S miscellaneous papers at the Beinecke Library (Yale) is a seemingly insignificant tailor’s bill made out to “R. L. Stevenson, Samoa” from Chorley, the tailor in Sydney (Australia). The bill lists such items as “1 pair of white serge tros.,” “1 pair of Bedford Cord riding tros.,” “and 3 pairs of pyjamas” (Figure 3). Not even his biographers have bothered to mention it.