Robert Louis Stevenson Museum: an unexpected highlight of Samoa

Robert Louis Stevenson Museum: an unexpected highlight of Samoa

The Robert Louis Stevenson Museum in Samoa was an unexpected highlight of our trip to Samoa. A fleeting cultural stop turned into a truly fascinating morning

“The Booker Prize money wouldn’t even keep me from cigarettes,” best-selling crime author Martina Cole once quipped. Amid snobbery about the type of commercial fiction she writes, the irreverent author's dig highlighted the fact that commercial fiction subsidizes literary fiction, allowing publishers to publish highbrow literature that hardly anyone buys.

Perhaps it was a similar snobbery that excluded author Robert Louis Stevenson from the Norton Anthology of English Literature for 32 years, and the reason why he went completely unmentioned in the 1973 2,000-page Oxford Anthology of English Literature. Modern critics have criticized his style as simplistic, but if raw and compelling storytelling has any value at all, Stevenson would certainly rank among the greats.

The author of Treasure Island and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Stevenson was born in Scotland and later lived and died in Samoa, halfway around the world. At just 44 years old, he was given a royal burial on Mount Vaea in Samoa.

Today his 400-acre home and burial site on Samoa's main island of 'Upolu are open to the public. We went along for a quick look and agreed we couldn't drive all the way to Samoa without visiting this cultural stopover. We arrived at 10am expecting to spend an hour there, but emerged four hours later shocked that we almost missed it.

First, the Robert Louis Stevenson Museum is beautiful. It's bright, airy, elegant and understated - the kind of home I would live in if I could afford it. There's a hint of colonial romance - you can practically smell the cigars and brandy.

I couldn't decide on a favorite room: maybe his study with his rare first editions, maybe his mother's room with a clear view of the Pacific, or maybe the huge living room with a dusty piano and lion skin. Even his “sick room” evoked the romance of a bygone era.

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What is also striking is the Samoans' deep respect for Stevenson. Local tour guide Taina spoke of “Tusitala” (the Samoan name for Stevenson, meaning “teller of stories”) with obvious love and admiration. At one point her eyes watered as she described how he fought for the interests of the Samoan people. She told us that the Samoans manually cut a path up Mount Vaea to fulfill Tusitala's last wish to be buried on its summit.

After exploring the Robert Louis Stevenson Museum, we headed to the summit of Mount Vaea to visit his grave. Visitors can hike a 2.5 km route to the summit or take a steeper 0.8 km trail that is slightly more challenging. We chose the latter and reached the summit in a disheveled, sweaty state. We sat down for a drink of water. As we took in the panoramic views, it's possible we fell in love with this treasured island just as much as Stevenson did.

As we headed back downstairs, we talked about how a fleeting cultural stopover had turned into a truly fascinating morning. And then we smiled… If travel could still surprise us, we had a long road ahead of us to enjoy.

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