Language English Originally published 1892 Publisher Orion Publishing Group | Publication date 1892 Genre Adventure fiction Country Scotland | |
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Media type Print (Hardback & Paperback) Similar Robert Louis Stevenson books, Adventure fiction books | ||
The Wrecker (1892) is a novel written by Robert Louis Stevenson in collaboration with his stepson Lloyd Osbourne.
Contents
Plot
The story is about a "sprawling, episodic adventure story, a comedy of brash manners and something of a detective mystery". It revolves around the abandoned wreck of the Flying Scud at Midway Island. Clues in a stamp collection are used to track down the missing crew and solve the mystery. It is only in the last chapter that different story elements become linked. Stevenson described it as a "South Sea yarn" concerning "a very strange and defective plan that was accepted with open eyes for what seemed countervailing opportunities offered". Although the book sold well, reviews were mixed, with a The New York Times reviewer concluding that:
The Wrecker is a kind of blank-cartridge romance with a big explosion, which raises a dust, and if anything really has happened it escapes you in the flash and the cloud of smoke.
The different, loosely connected stories reflected how Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne wrote the book. Each contributed different sections, but agreed to develop characters and descriptions of places they both knew well. The following are examples:
Adaptation
"The Wrecker", an episode of Roy Huggins' TV Western Maverick (1957) starring James Garner and Jack Kelly, is described in the closing credits as "From a Novel by Robert Louis Stevenson & Lloyd Osbourne". The Maverick brothers buy the wreck of the Flying Scud at an auction, and try to find out why its cargo is so valuable.