An interesting connection between the author of Treasure Island and chocolate!
Here at Open Book Chocolates, we — Geri & Irene — are long-time fans of the Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson, his life, and works. Stevenson, best known for his novel Treasure Island and novella the Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, was born in Edinburgh in 1850.
Although sickly as a child and as an adult, he traveled extensively and wrote about his travels. Stevenson explored Europe, journeyed across the United States (from New York City to San Francisco by train), and ended up in Hawaii and around the Pacific, before finally arriving in Samoa. Additionally, he was a prolific letter writer, penning approximately 2,800 letters during his short 44-year lifetime.
Recently, we read a New York Times book review written by Brooke Allen of Camille Peri’s brand-new biography, A Wilder Shore: The Romantic Odyssey of Fanny and Robert Louis Stevenson. And, in reading this review, we discovered something very exciting about Stevenson and his wife that we didn’t know before:
“After further travels through Europe and America the couple departed for the South Seas: Nuku Hiva, Fakarava, Tahiti, Hawaii, Micronesia, the Gilbert Islands and finally Samoa, where they bought 300 acres and created a cacao farm; Fanny’s extensive plantings would later become the nucleus of Samoa’s premier botanical garden, which can still be visited today. The Stevensons, passionate anti-imperialists, shed their Western ways and adopted local customs, becoming closely involved in regional politics, while Louis produced journalism and fiction at an almost frantic pace.”
Robert Louis Stevenson and his wife Fanny created and cared for a cacao farm while living in Samoa!
In his letters, Stevenson writes about working his cacao farm:
“In spite of the loss of three days, as I have to tell, and a lot of weeding and cacao planting, I have finished since the mail left four chapters, forty-eight pages of my Samoa history… We are all on the cacao planting.
—From November 25th, 1891
“However, I am off work this month, and occupy myself instead in weeding my cacao, paper-chases, and the like.. but I have just returned with my arms all stung from three hours’ work in the cacao.
—From August 7th, 1894
When we originally created our Treasure Island (Rum and Coconut in Dark Chocolate) bar, although we had read Stevenson’s works and knew about his years abroad, we had no idea he himself actually farmed cacao. What a wonderful coincidence! It seems like our Treasure Island chocolate bar was just meant to be!
Portrait of Robert Louis Stevenson (1887) by John Singer Sargent.