[Rarebooks] FS: Greatly Reduced: Plans for an Addition to Skerryvore, home of Robert Louis Stevenson

[Allington]

Greetings to All.  

We have GREATLY REDUCED THE PRICE OF the below-described item which can be found in our eBay listings.  Here is the link:

https://goo.gl/LRR7xw

Stevenson, Robert Louis; Sumner, Heywood [Sumner, George Heywood Maunoir]. Skerryvore: Rare Original Plans for Proposed Alterations to Skerryvore. Bournemouth: 1900. ORIGINAL PLANS FOR AN ADDITION TO SKERRYVORE, Robert Louis Stevenson's home in Bournemouth where he had the famous dream which inspired his great work "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", which tale, among other great works, he wrote at Skerryvore. The Plans were prepared in 1900 for Heywood Sumner, Esq., a successor in ownership, for the addition of a Studio to the house. [Heywood Sumner -- George Heywood Maunoir Sumner -- was the well-known English painter, illustrator and art-craftsman who was closely involved with the Arts and Crafts movement and the late-Victorian London art world. Sumner, who was qualified as a Barrister, also employed much of his time as an amateur archaeologist, geologist, naturalist, and folklorist.] Skerryvore, whose lawns ran down from the house to Alum Chine Road, is where Stevenson lived from 1884 until his departure for Samoa (where he died in 1894). Thus, the Plans were prepared soon after his departure and show the house as it existed when Stevenson owned it, together with the proposed Studio addition. A "wedding present" from Stevenson's father to Stevenson and his wife, Fanny, four years after their marriage -- most likely the father's attempt to keep his peripatetic son near to him in his last years -- Stevenson came to ownership of it upon his father's death in 1887. Named after "Skerryvore", the tallest lighthouse in Scotland and one designed by his uncle, Alan Stevenson, who, like Stevenson's father, was a leading lighthouse engineer, the house was destroyed by German bombs on November 16, 1940. There now stands in its place a memorial garden containing a statue of the lighthouse for which the home was named. With some tears and minor loss, these ORIGINAL PLANS are in quite nice condition overall, are unique to the market, and likely comprise the only plans for this important house available, or hereafter likely to be available, for purchase. An important record of Stevenson's house, a LITERARY LANDMARK, and a rare opportunity for the Collector.RARE INDEED.  


Best Wishes,  

Stephen
Allington Antiquarian Books, LLC





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