The Story of the House of Cassell
have seemed enough for any one man to endure without the additional strain of literary work."
In the years that intervened between "The Master of Ballantrae" and "Catriona," four other books of Stevenson's had issued from the Cassell Press. The first was a private edition, now exceedingly rare, "The South Seas," of which but twenty-two copies were printed and only seven passed into circulation. This was followed by "The Wrecker," in which Lloyd Osbourne collaborated with his stepfather. "As for the manner," Stevenson wrote to his cousin, R. A. M. Stevenson, "it is superficially all mine, in the sense that the last copy is all in my hand. Lloyd did not even put pen to paper in the Paris scenes or the Barbizon scene.... I had the best service from him on the character of Nares." The story was finished at Vailima in the autumn of 1891, ran through Scribner's Magazine, and was published as a volume in 1892. "A Footnote to History"—which R. L. S., in a letter, dubbed "a history of nowhere in a corner, for no time to mention"—came next, in 1892, and then, in 1893, the fantastic and fascinating "Island Nights' Entertainments," by Stevenson and his wife.
It was Cassell's who arranged for the complete edition of Stevenson's works which followed the famous first collected edition, the "Edinburgh." A desire had been expressed from time to time for a fresh complete edition, and one or two attempts had been made to arrange for one, but nothing matured until it occurred to the House that Stevenson's various publishers might co-operate in its production. The chief of them, besides Cassell and Co., were Messrs. Chatto and Windus, Mr. Wm. Heinemann, and Messrs. Longmans, Green and Co., who all entered readily into the scheme. The edition was called the "Pentland," after the beloved hills of Stevenson's youth, and an issue limited to 1,500 copies was arranged for. The series was medium octavo in size, and contained twenty volumes, the price of the whole set being £10 10s.
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