The Amateur Emigrant: From the Clyde to Sandy Hook

Robert Louis Stevenson

Jan 1895 · Cosimo Classics

About this eBook

"For in emigration the young men enter direct by the shipload on their heritage of work; empty continents swarm, as at the bosun's whistle, with industrious hands, and whole hew empires are domesticated to the service of man."

-Robert Louis Stevenson, The Amateur Emigrant

The Amateur Emigrant from the Clyde to Sandy Hook (1895), by Robert Louis Stevenson is the first book (followed by Across the Plains and the Silverado Squatters) in a trilogy the author wrote about his journey from Scotland to California in 1879-1880. In this volume, he describes the first leg of his trip, made by ship from Europe to New York City. Stevenson depicts the crowded conditions he experienced in steerage with others who, like him, were poor and sick. At the conclusion, the author also offers his usual sharp-eyed observations, which, in this case are of New York and New Yorkers.

About the author

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON (1850-1894), Scottish writer and poet, was born in Edinburgh to a prosperous family of engineers but gave up the family profession first for law and then for literature. Among his prodigious output as a writer are: The Black Arrow (1884), A Child's Garden of Verses (1885), Kidnapped (1886), and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886).