Counterpoint: Fanny’s and Louis’s Pacific Diaries

Abstract

This chapter the progression of several textual fragments describing Pacific islands that the Stevensons visited on the ship the Janet Nichol, from their first draft as holograph manuscript fragments, to their inclusion in Fanny Stevenson’s published diary The Cruise of the Janet Nicoll [sic], and sometimes their inclusion in Louis’s published nonfiction in In the South Seas as well as fiction such as The Beach of Falesá. Much of this material, which was originally written by Louis but later claimed by Fanny, concerns one topic--that of the sexual exploitation of young Pacific Island girls by white traders. The shared nature of the family’s diaries allowed Louis to hide in his wife’s diary material on a topic that was evidently of great interest to him, but that would have negatively affected this very famous author’s reputation as a family-friendly author.