The Wrong Box

The Wrong Box is a black comedy novel co-written by Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne, first published in 1889. The story is about the last two surviving members of a tontine, who also happen to be brothers. The book is notable for being the first of three novels that Stevenson co-wrote with Osbourne, who was his stepson. The second was The Wrecker (1892) and The Ebb-Tide (1894) was the third. Osbourne wrote the first draft of the novel l... more

The Wrong Box is a black comedy novel co-written by Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne, first published in 1889. The story is about the last two surviving members of a tontine, who also happen to be brothers. The book is notable for being the first of three novels that Stevenson co-wrote with Osbourne, who was his stepson. The second was The Wrecker (1892) and The Ebb-Tide (1894) was the third. Osbourne wrote the first draft of the novel late in 1887 (then called The Finsbury Tontine), Stevenson revised it in 1888 (then called A Game of Bluff) and again in 1889 when it was finally called The Wrong Box. Rudyard Kipling, in a letter to his friend Edmonia Hill (dated September 17 1889), praised the novel: less