“Following 20 years of operation by the Saranac Lake Village Board, ownership of the Robert Louis Stevenson Memorial Cottage reverted to the Stevenson Societ
Tip Roseberry was known as “The Roving Reporter” when he or she wrote this for the Albany Times Union in 1955: “The present tenants of the Robert Louis
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Robert Louis Stevenson is seen in an original print presented by himself to J. Phelps Smith, son of Paul Smith.
“The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a book of which the oft-repeated statement is literally true, that its perusal is an unbroken spell.” That is from one of many first reviews of the famous novella pasted into a scrapbook by the author’s mother, Mrs. Margaret Isabella Balfour Stevenson, about 130 years ago. Altogether, “Maggie” compiled six such volumes covering her son’s career in media clippings. Three of them, including the only posthumous scrapbook, take up cabinet space in Maggie’s former personal space at Baker’s, better known today as the Robert Louis Stevenson Memorial Cottage.
Robert Louis Stevenson and the Saranac Connection
Robert Louis Stevenson at Bakerâs with cigarette and skates â a diorama by Dwight Franklin. “Walking over the fields, with a stick in his hand and his skates thrown over his shoulders, he looked and seemed his happiest.” Bertha Baker, Saranac Lake
Behind glass in Robert Louis Stevenson’s former study at Baker’s in Saranac Lake lies a pair of very old and worn ice skates, the very ones used by the author of “The Master of Ballantrae” on Moody Pond in the winter of 1887-88. Will Hickock Low, an American artist who, befriended by RLS in France in 1876, returned them to the Hunter’s Home in 1918, when he was a prominent member of the Stevenson Society of America. It was another member of the society who had provided the skates to the famous tenant of Andrew Baker in 1887. He was Charles Scribner, Stevenson’s first American publisher, and they were friends, too. From a letter by Scribner to Stephen Chalmer