
The Amateur Emigrant
'The Amateur Emigrant' Summary
In July 1879, Robert Louis Stevenson received word that his future American wife's (Fanny Vandegrift) divorce was almost complete and she was ready to remarry, but that she was seriously ill. He left Scotland right away to meet her in her native California. Leaving by ship from Glasgow, Scotland, he determined to travel in steerage class to see how the working classes fared. At the last minute he was convinced by friends to purchase a ticket one grade above the lowest, which he was later thankful for after seeing the conditions at the bow of the boat, but he still lived among the lower classes.
Stevenson described the crowded weeks in steerage with the poor and sick, as well as stowaways, and his initial reactions to New York City, where he spent a few days. Filled with sharp-eyed observations, it brilliantly conveys Stevenson’s perceptions of America and Americans. It also provides a very detailed and enjoyable account of what it was like to travel to America as an emigrant in the 19th century, during a time of mass migrations to the New World. Details such as the bedding arrangements, daily food rations, relationships with the crew and with higher grade ticket holders, passengers of other nationalities, entertainment, children - all provide a rich and colorful tapestry of life on board the ship.
The work was never published in full in Stevenson's lifetime. It shocked the sensibilities of his middle-class friends and family that he was so close with rough people. Certain passages were considered too graphic by the publisher, and also by Stevenson's father Thomas Stevenson, who bought all the copies of the already printed travelogue, judging it beneath his son's talent. However The Amateur Emigrant is a remarkable revelation of the intermingled complexities of class, race and gender in late Victorian England. Andrew Noble (1991) says it was Stevenson's greatest work, due to his willingness to confront the difficult social conditions of his time.
Book Details
Authors

Robert Louis Stevenson
Scotland
Stevenson's critical essays on literature contain "few sustained analyses of style of content". In "A Penny Plain and Two-pence Coloured" (1884) he suggests that his own approach owed much to the exag...
Books by Robert Louis StevensonDownload eBooks
Listen/Download Audiobook
- Select Speed
Related books

First Four Voyages of Amerigo Vespucci by Francisco Adolfo de Varnhagen
This book contains the first-hand account of Amerigo Vespucci's four voyages to the Americas, which took place between 1497 and 1504. Vespucci's lette...

How the "Mastiffs" Went to Iceland by Anthony Trollope
A 19th-century travelogue that recounts the author's experiences on a voyage to Iceland aboard the ship Mastiff. The book provides detailed descriptio...

Arroyo by Élisée Reclus
This book is a poetic and philosophical exploration of the natural world, following the journey of a single stream as it flows through various landsca...

National Geographic Magazine Vol. 10 - 06. June 1899 by National Geographic Society
This edition of the National Geographic Magazine, published in June 1899, delves into a range of geographical and scientific topics. It explores the r...

Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes by Robert Louis Stevenson
Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes is one of Robert Louis Stevenson's earliest published works and is considered a pioneering classic of outdoor li...

My Travels, A Family Story by Maria Hackett
Join Maria Hackett on a heartwarming journey through her family's travels across the United States, filled with adventure, discovery, and the bonds of...

In the Land of Cave and Cliff Dwellers by Frederick Schwatka
An adventurer and explorer of no mean repute, Lieutenant Frederick Schwatka leads an expedition by mule train into the forbidding Sierra Madre mountai...

Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark by Mary Wollstonecraft
Published in 1796, Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark is a personal travel narrative by the eighteenth-century Br...

Birdseye Views of Far Lands by James T. Nichols
Birdseye Views of Far Lands is an interesting, wholesome presentation of something that a keen-eyed, alert traveler with the faculty of making contras...

National Geographic Magazine Vol. 01 No. 2 by National Geographic Society
This second issue of the National Geographic Magazine, published in 1889, delves into the diverse aspects of Africa. It presents an insightful explora...
Reviews for The Amateur Emigrant
No reviews posted or approved, yet...