In the year 1890, Stevenson was living at Apia in Samoa where he had purchased some three hundred acres in the bush, two miles behind and six hundred feet above the level of the town, and on which he proposed to build a cottage for himself and his family. Why did he almost immediately leave Samoa to pay his first visit to Sydney? The answer, as he tells us himself, was not "for the purpose of spying out the land," but first because he was seeking health, and secondly because he wished to consult an architect regarding the plans for his new home to be built at Vailima.

So begins historian George Mackaness in this classic monograph detailing the author's four visits to Sydney between 1890 and 1894, touching on his writings here of Father Damien and The Wrecker.

Introduced by Robert Darroch.