6 h 36 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 6 h 36 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if your family's fortune depends on who keeps breathing—and a dead body goes to the wrong place?
In The Wrong Box, Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne turn a Victorian money scheme into dry, quick farce. A fund called a tontine goes to its last surviving member. Old brothers Joseph and Masterman Finsbury remain in the running, while their quarrelsome relatives watch the money and plan their next moves.
A railway accident near Browndean throws those plans into confusion. Morris Finsbury wants the fortune on his side, but his schemes keep making matters worse. Michael Finsbury, a witty, lazy London lawyer, tries to steer the mess his own way. Mistaken identities and a misleading parcel turn family greed into a chase through England.
What you’ll discover
- A fortune worth scheming for Explore a fund whose rules make every survivor's next breath a matter of family interest.
- Relatives at cross purposes Meet a quarrelsome family whose hunger for money keeps feeding the confusion.
- The wrong parcel Follow mix-ups where neither a label nor an apparent identity deserves much trust.
- An unlikely guiding hand Watch Michael Finsbury see through family schemes while trying to direct the tangled affair.
- A cool comic voice Enjoy a narrator whose neat sentences and dry amusement sharpen the absurdity.
Who will love it
You will love this book if you enjoy farce, dry narrators, absurd plots and fast comic dialogue. It suits fans of Stevenson who want his lightest and funniest side.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Greed makes family into property
- A refusal becomes a conspiracy
- The wrong body starts the trouble
- A joke sends everything astray
- A statue brings love and anger
- Michael gives the body another home
- Gideon tries to become his hero
- Respectability protects names rather than consciences
- Objects and beliefs drive the comedy
Who’s who
- Morris FinsburyA miserly leather merchant who guards his uncle like an investment and schemes to win the family tontine.
- Michael FinsburyMorris's cousin, a clever and amused solicitor who handles shady cases and enjoys other people's disasters.
- Joseph FinsburyAn elderly lecturer in a peaked cap who loves facts and public speaking and wants only to be left alone.
- John FinsburyMorris's younger brother, a music-hall fan who calls himself the Great Vance and wants comfort and a good dinner.
- Julia HazeltineJoseph's ward, cheerful and sensible, who keeps the peace in John Street and becomes fond of Gideon Forsyth.
- Gideon ForsythA young barrister and secret novelist who wants a first brief and gets a very difficult client.
- William Dent PitmanA timid drawing master and bad sculptor in Chelsea who wants a quiet and respectable life.
- Edward Hugh BloomfieldGideon's uncle, loud and generous, a Radical in politics with the temper of an old-fashioned squire.
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The Wrong Box
by Robert Louis Stevenson; Lloyd Osbourne · 1889
A dead stranger in a water barrel, a silent grand piano and two cousins who each think the other hides a corpse.
Medium level2–5 hours to read16 languages
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“What gets people hanged, my dear Pitman, is the unfortunate fact that they’re guilty.”
In short
What would you do with a dead body that belongs to the wrong man? In The Wrong Box, a young solicitor, a drawing master, a stuffy barrister and a miserly leather merchant all face that question, and none can answer it.
The Wrong Box at a glance
- Reading time
- About 3 h 50 min3 h fast, 4 h 35 min slow
- Length
- 54,500 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
- First published
- 1889by Robert Louis Stevenson; Lloyd Osbourne
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A tontine turns a family into a trap
The book opens with a joke about the tontine. Everyone pays in, the money sits for decades, and the last survivor collects it, usually too old to enjoy it. The narrator calls the scheme perfect, since nobody can possibly benefit.
Thirty-seven children joined the Finsbury tontine. Now only three members, including the two old brothers, Masterman and Joseph, are left. Joseph once left a hole of seven thousand eight hundred pounds in the money of his orphan nephews, so he gave Morris his share of the tontine to settle it.
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Details
- First published
- 1889
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 4 h 15 min
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
Stevenson, Robert Louis, and Lloyd Osbourne. The Wrong Box. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-wrong-box.
Stevenson, R. L., & Osbourne, L. (2026). The wrong box. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-wrong-box (Original work published 1889)
Stevenson, Robert Louis, and Lloyd Osbourne. The Wrong Box. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-wrong-box.
@book{stevenson2026wrong,
author = {Stevenson, Robert Louis and Osbourne, Lloyd},
title = {The Wrong Box},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-wrong-box},
note = {First published 1889}
}
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What is The Wrong Box about?
It follows a family of relatives who hope to win a tontine, an investment pool paid to the last survivor. A railway crash, mixed-up labels and a dead stranger lead to one mistaken delivery after another across London and the Thames.
What is a tontine in The Wrong Box?
A tontine pools contributions from several people into a fund whose entire sum goes to the last survivor. The book jokes that nobody benefits, because the winner is likely to be very old and nearly dead.
Who wrote The Wrong Box and when?
Robert Louis Stevenson wrote it with his stepson Lloyd Osbourne. It appeared in the 1880s and is a comic novel set in Victorian England. It is fiction, though it parodies the crime fiction and railway novels of its time.
The author
Robert Louis Stevenson
1850–1894 · Scottish novelist and poet
Robert Louis Stevenson was a Scottish novelist and poet, born in Edinburgh in 1850. He wrote Treasure Island (1883), A Child’s Garden of Verses (1885), and Kidnapped and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886). He settled in Samoa in 1890 and died there in 1894.
“What gets people hanged, my dear Pitman, is the unfortunate fact that they’re guilty.”
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