South Sea Tales

In South Sea Tales Stevenson shows himself to be a virtuoso of narrative styles. But beyond their generic diversity the stories are linked by their concern with representing the multiracial society of which their author had become a member. In this collection--the first to bring together all his shorter Pacific fiction in one volume--Stevenson emerges as a witness both to the cross-cultural encounters of nineteenth-century imperialism and to the creation of the global culture which characterizes the post-colonial world.

Roslyn Jolly is Lecturer in English at the University of New South Wales, Australia. She is the author of Henry James: History, Narrative, Fiction (OUP, 1993).