Customer Reviews

The Wrong Box

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

We don't usually think of RLS as a comic writer, but a story-teller ofswashbuckling romances like Kidnapped and Treasure Island. ButThe Wrong Box is comedy in the grand manner: eccentric characters,a wonderfully convoluted plot, settings that range from railway trainwrecks through moldering houseboats, barrels, boxes, and a grand pianothat have bodies in them (actually, the same body), plus a charming romance. It also contains some of Stevenson's finest descriptive writing -- vivid,dramatic, and funny. Miss Haseltine's description of how she will firethe revolver she bought as self-protection is worth the price of the book.Who can forget a novel in which the young solictor Gideon Forsyth is trying to write an opera in the key of seven sharps called "Orange Pekoe-- Orange Pekoe" while hiding on a houseboat?But no more spoilers, if that was a spoiler. If you read or saw "ColdComfort Farm" by Stella Gibbons -- or even if not -- you'll love "The Wrong Box."Very highly recommended.

My review title sums up the overall flavor of the book, that being a "black comedy," but the humor is the result of Stevenson's uncanny ability to weave ever changing plot twists into the overall story itself without ever losing a sense of continuity.

Joseph Finsbury is a character whose heart may be in the right place but his head never is. Constantly preoccupied with trivial intellectual pursuits, he allows his leather business to go heavily into debt to the brink of ruin. Having raised his two nephews, John and Morris, since the death of their father, the news of the loss of their fortune to Joseph Finsbury's malfeasance lays the ground work for all that is to come.

Morris, who is shrewd and extremely self-centered, is given the ailing leather business as consolation. But Morris counts on Joseph winning the tontine to make him whole. A tontine is a scheme where participants pay an equal amount of money into a kitty and the last one living gets it all.

The three are involved in a train wreck and the assumed body of Joseph Fisbury is found by Morris and John who hatch a plan to first hide the body and then ship it back to their home in Bloomsbury, London, where they will pretend Joseph is still alive; which he needs to be to keep their claim to the tontine intact. It is during shipment that its' destination is changed as a sort of practical joke and mayhem ensues shortly thereafter.

The bulk of the story essentially has people coming home and finding a dead man in their house whom they've never seen before, dead or alive, and who definitely wasn't there when they left. The problem then is obvious; What to do with the body? It is here that Stevenson is ulra-creative with the solutions these poor unfortunate souls come up with long before Bernie ever had two losers over for the weekend.

I found myself laughing several times throughout the book, which is only about 150 pages of text, and always eager to pick it up again to see where poor "Joseph" would end up next and who would get him. This is one of Stevenson's less familiar works but also one of his best. Buy it, read it, tell a friend. You'll be glad you did and so will they.

[submitted on behalf of G. Franco Mattioli, Milan]

If you have some heart problems, it is better to avoid this book. You might have the same reactions that Rudyard Kipling had on this reading: laugh and fast heart-beating.

Practically it is impossible to touch this subject without been absorbed through the mirror as Alice and in the same time to be happy to be different. Morris Finsbury, the "great Vance", uncle Joseph, Miss Hazeltine, Gideon, the uncle "Wooden Spoon", William Dent, Bloomsbury, Victoria Station, are surely coincidental with your world, parents, neighbors, your TV characters and other people you know. Never a virtual Country (this 18th Century England) was so similar to the Country in which you are leaving now.

But this vivid Victorian picture is penetrating in your mind as ever before.

The other problem you will encounter is that of ever putting this very addicting book down. You will read and read it again to search the hidden treasure left in this Island on which only few elected spirits are claimed to wreck being happy of doing it.

Although I haven't read any of Robert Louis Stevenson's books beyond the big ones (Treasure Island, Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, Kidnapped, New Arabian Nights), I thought I was at least familiar with the rest of his work. But when Washington Post columnist Michael Dirda wrote about this book in one of his essays, I not only knew I'd never heard of it, I knew I had to read it. The story is the kind of slapstick black comedy one can scarcely credit being around in the 19th-century. It concerns two elderly brothers who happen to be the final remaining members of a tontine (this is a kind of private long-term lottery in which funds are anted into a common pool, and the last living member of the "players" claims the entire sum). Each of these old men has a younger male relative who has an eye on claiming the prize at the expense of his cousin. The plot more or less defies easy summarizing, but it involves mistaken identity, the transportation and hiding of a corpse, and all manner of jiggery-pokery by all involved. The farcical antics are rendered in delightfully sprightly prose that remains completely entertaining more than a century later.

Note: There is apparently some contraversy regarding the exact nature of Stevenson's authorship of this work. It is co-credited to his stepson Lloyd Osborne (they colloborated on at least three other works), and some speculate that it is entirely Osborne's work since its style and tone are quite different from most of Stevenson's work. Whatever the case, it's a fun read. There is also a 1966 film version starring Michael Caine, which at present is only available to American audiences on VHS or Region 2 DVD.

I'ts great to see this priceless little book so affordably back in print. I'm not sure that it's ever had a big American following, but for some years the Times of London had to limit its writers to only one allusion to the novel per issue. (My review title was an oft-repeated line.) The colloration of Stevenson and stepson Lloyd Osborne, it's a seamless integration of comic light adventure, mystery, novel of manners and high-handed farce, all in some of the purest English prose you'll ever read. It's one of those books you end up rereading at least twice, reading aloud to anyone who'll listen, and giving at Christmas - in short, a classic. (The film version cited on this page has a perfect cast but cuts and alters the plot pretty badly - and this is simply one of those books, like most of Dickens and Fitzgerald, that has to be read to be really appreciated.) I'm not familiar with the publisher, but this may be one of those short-run affairs that should be got while it's there.

Nothing to do on a Friday night or snowbound in front of the fireplace? Fear not! Your entertainment has arrived. This novel showcases Robert Louis Stevenson's penchant for what today is called "dark comedy." It might be described as tongue-in-cheek reportage of a flurry of characters who find ingenious ways of fobbing off onto others a box containing a corpse, though not the corpse of the man who was thought to be the corpse, who actually is not even dead! It gets complicated, you see. The best thing about the book--other than its hilarious plot and ironic tone--is the way Stevenson picks through the mind of each character in search of something rational. Like the novel *A Simple Plan*, so much of the text comprises interior dialogue that it would be hard to turn this into a movie, but it was done once (in the 1960s) and is due, I think, for a re-make. Owen Wilson would be a natural for this one!

This was a great read! I couldn't wait to get to the end. It has quite the tangled plot and gave laughs along the way to boot. I didn't know who would end up where, but when the characters started bumping into each other in strange and twisted ways it was that much more interesting. Who would have thought that Robert Louis Stevenson had it in him? I never heard of this book until I purchased my Kindle and it was the first thing I read. I would recommend this to anyone who likes to be entertained.

This is one of the funniest stories I have ever happened across. I was led to the book by the movie. The two are very different. Each is highly enjoyable and very funny.

However, if I had to choose only one, I would choose the movie. The book is so convoluted that by the end, I was somewhat confused. The movie simplifies a lot of the complexities, leaving cleaner plot lines and providing greater laughs.

To each his own; you may not agree with me. I suggest you enjoy both the book and the movie, and make up your mind for yourself.

I loved the convoluted comic plot, the dead body that never stinks no matter how far it's carted around, and all of the characters' antics.

I didn't love how many words it took to communicate those things.

I just wanted hard copy of a text I had already on Kindle, and this barely provided it. It was clearly just the Project Gutenberg transcription poured onto the page with no attempt to match the layout or formatting of the original publication. This is especially noticeable in a section where, in the original, one of the characters lists pros and cons in two parallel columns. There are no columns here, just items 1, 1, 2, 2, and so on interlaced.

I wished I had noted the physical size of the book before ordering: this paperback is an odd 8" x 10" size as compared to the standard 5" x 8" trade paperback. It would have been pleasanter to handle and a more satisfactory heft in the smaller size. The cover photo is totally irrelevant to the subject and seems to have been chosen at random.

This was about what one might expect from a POD product, but I ended up ordering a used copy of an actual print edition for my permanent library.