Robert Louis Stevenson in Sydney

On this page you will find information about RLS’s travels to Sydney in 1890, 1891 and 1893.

1890

•4 February 1890, RLS leaves Apia on the steamship Lübeck with Fanny and Lloyd

•13 February, arrives in Sydney and stays at the Union Club (Bent Street), working on The Wrecker (1892)

•11 April, leaves Sydney with Fanny and Lloyd on the Janet Nicoll

•7 August 1890, arrives in Sydney on the S.S. Stockton from Noumea (New Caledonia) and stays at the Union Club, working on The Wrecker (1892), The Ebb-Tide (1894), In the South Seas (1896) and Ballads (1890)

•4 September, leaves Sydney with Fanny on the Lübeck

•15 September, arrives in Apia

1891

Stevenson plaque in Sydney

•5 January 1891, leaves Vailima, spends the night in Apia

•6 January 1891, leaves Apia on the Lübeck

•20 January, arrives in Sydney; meets up with Lloyd, who had just arrived in Australia with RLS’s mother from Edinburgh; stays at the Oxford Hotel

•23 January, RLS’s mother arrives from visiting a niece in Melbourne, stays at the Oxford Hotel

•26 January, RLS and his mother move to Mrs Leaney’s boarding house, 6 St Mary’s Terrace, Lower

•18 February, leaves Sydney with his mother on the Lübeck (Lloyd had returned earlier)

•1 March, arrives back in Samoa

1893

•18 February 1893, leaves Apia (with Fanny and Belle) on the S.S. Mariposa

•24 February, the S.S. Mariposa reaches Aukland, RLS visits Sir George Grey

•28 February, arrives in Sydney, stays at the Oxford Hotel

•20 March, leaves Sydney on the Mariposa

•30 March, arrives back in Samoa

By Richard Dury