to Mrs. Thomas Stevenson

La Solitude, Hyères, [November 1883].

MY DEAR MOTHER,—You must not blame me too much for my silence; I am over head and ears in work, and do not know what to do first.  I have been hard at Otto, hard at Silverado proofs, which I have worked over again to a tremendous extent; cutting, adding, rewriting, until some of the worst chapters of the original are now, to my mind, as good as any.  I was the more bound to make it good, as I had such liberal terms; it’s not for want of trying if I have failed.

I got your letter on my birthday; indeed, that was how I found it out about three in the afternoon, when postie comes.  Thank you for all you said.  As for my wife, that was the best investment ever made by man; but ‘in our branch of the family’ we seem to marry well.  I, considering my piles of work, am wonderfully well; I have not been so busy for I know not how long.  I hope you will send me the money I asked however, as I am not only penniless, but shall remain so in all human probability for some considerable time.  I have got in the mass of my expectations; and the £100 which is to float us on the new year can not come due till Silverado is all ready; I am delaying it myself for the moment; then will follow the binders and the travellers and an infinity of other nuisances; and only at the last, the jingling-tingling.

Do you know that Treasure Island has appeared?  In the November number of Henley’s Magazine, a capital number anyway, there is a funny publisher’s puff of it for your book; also a bad article by me.  Lang dotes on Treasure Island: ‘Except Tom Sawyer and the Odyssey,’ he writes, ‘I never liked any romance so much.’  I will inclose the letter though.  The Bogue is angelic, although very dirty.  It has rained—at last!  It was jolly cold when the rain came.

I was overjoyed to hear such good news of my father.  Let him go on at that!  Ever your affectionate,

R. L. S.