While on a trip to the Saranac Lake, Lake Placid area a few years back, I came across a small frame house that had been made into a museum for author, Robert Louis Stevenson who wrote such endearing stories as Treasure Island, A Child's Garden of Verses, Kidnapped and the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Mr. Stevenson had spent some time at this place when he was diagnosed with tuberculosis. The Saranac area was a well known place to treat tuberculosis at the time, before the modern medications.
It was told to us, by the owner of the museum, that he did not like the cold weather and could not wait to go visit his friend in Tahiti, the famous artist, Gauguin.
There was some dispute, at the time we visited here, whether his things should be allowed to stay here or put into a more modern and apparently safer place in another building in the town, so this place might not exist any longer. But, wherever his things are stored, it is worthwhile to go see it as some of his original books were among them.
2 comments:
Guess we as writers should hope our writing relics might someday go into a museum. Or do we?
I didn't know Stevenson went to the South Pacific to visit Gauguin. That would have been quite a trip in those days, especially for someone so ill.
(Sorry, I deleted my earlier comment because when it was posted I saw several errors.)
All the best,
Monti
MaryMontagueSikes
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