Robert Louis Stevenson 
The Merry Men 

In ‘The Merry Men’ Charles pays a visit to his Uncle Gordon and cousin Mary Ellen. They live on the island of Eilean Aros, which has dangerous waters and has been the site of many shipwrecks. Indeed, the island is surrounded by treacherous reefs, known locally as ‘the Merry Men’. They are so named because ‘the noise of them seemed almost mirthful [. . .] yet instinct with a portentous joviality. Nay, and it seemed even human’.

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Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson (13 November 1850 — 3 December 1894) was a British novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer. His most famous works are Treasure Island, Kidnapped, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and A Child’s Garden of Verses. Stevenson was a literary celebrity during his lifetime, and now ranks as the 26th most translated author in the world. His works have been admired by many other writers, including Jorge Luis Borges, Bertolt Brecht, Marcel Proust, Arthur Conan Doyle, Henry James, Cesare Pavese, Emilio Salgari, Ernest Hemingway, Rudyard Kipling, Jack London, Vladimir Nabokov, J. M. Barrie, and G. K. Chesterton, who said that Stevenson ‘seemed to pick the right word up on the point of his pen, like a man playing spillikins’.