The Merry Men, and Other Tales and Fables

A Hebridean uncle who has gone strange watching the breakers he calls the Merry Men take ships; Markheim, a murderer met by something in an empty shop; Olalla; Will o' the Mill; Thrawn Janet and the minister she serves. Stevenson gave up engineering and the law, spent his life outrunning tuberculosis, and drew the map of Treasure Island for his stepson before writing a word. This 1887 collection holds his darkest short work. Fifty-eight plates by painters including Turner and McTaggart follow the tales from Highland hills to storm and open sea, matching Stevenson's own world of rock, wreck and weather.