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Audiobook editionPaperback · 6 × 9 in · 156 pagesHardcover · 6 × 9 in · 156 pagesAbout this book
How much trouble can one small lie bring when fear, pride and hidden shame keep it alive?
In Tales and Fantasies, Robert Louis Stevenson gathers three short tales of misadventure, dark secrets and choices that go wrong. People try to avoid embarrassment, hide their thoughts or protect the face they show the world. A poor decision becomes the start of something larger, and the distance between private shame and public appearance leaves little room for comfort.
These stories reveal another side of the Scottish writer known for Treasure Island and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Stevenson keeps the pace moving through incident, vivid pictures and clean, rhythmic prose. Scottish settings and a strict moral conscience shape a shadowed world where bad luck matters, but so do the lies people tell themselves.
What you’ll discover
- Small choices, large troubles Follow the misadventures that begin when fear or pride makes a poor choice seem easier.
- The weight of secrets Explore the gap between the face people show and the thoughts they keep hidden.
- A Scottish moral world Enter stories shaped by Scottish settings, strict habits and questions of personal responsibility.
- Stories that move Enjoy compact tales driven by vivid scenes, quick incident and clear, rhythmic prose.
- Stevenson beyond adventure Discover his taste for hidden shame, bad luck and the trouble a lie can bring.
Who will love it
Readers who enjoy Scottish settings, wry narrators, and comedy touched by darkness will love these tales. So will those drawn to ghostly dread, tangled families, and love stories with a flaw at their center.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A strict home encourages small secrets
- One neglected errand opens another danger
- Wealth cannot repair years of silence
- Steady kindness interrupts John's panic
- Looking away makes Fettes an accomplice
- False courage tightens a shared bond
- A loving story bends the truth
- The real father strains the dream
- Small choices gather consequences across tales
Who’s who
- John NicholsonA stout, kind, clumsy Edinburgh son who wants his father's approval and keeps making matters worse.
- Flora MackenzieJohn's old sweetheart, now a firm, practical nurse who hears his story and tells him plainly what she thinks.
- FettesA gifted medical student who wants comfort and respect and learns to look away from what he suspects.
- Wolfe MacfarlaneA stylish, ruthless young doctor who wants success and binds others to him with money and fear.
- Dick NasebyA thoughtful young Englishman who studies people, loves Esther, and wants to spare her the truth about her father.
- Esther Van TrompA passionate, proud girl who idealizes a father she has not seen since she was six.
- Peter Van TrompCalled the Admiral, a charming, shabby painter who lives by sponging and wants a comfortable home.
- Squire NasebyDick's hot-tempered father, certain he is right and unable to say he loves his son.
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Tales and Fantasies
A forgotten errand with four hundred pounds drives John Nicholson from Edinburgh to California and into a nightmare.
Medium level2–5 hours to read20 languages
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“They bring the body, and we pay the price”
In short
What happens when a young man with four hundred pounds in his pocket stops at a billiard room to help a friend? In Edinburgh, John Nicholson finds out.
Tales and Fantasies at a glance
- Reading time
- About 3 h 20 min2 h 35 min fast, 3 h 55 min slow
- Length
- 47,100 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
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 cheerful son meets a cold, strict home
The first tale opens with a warning about its hero. John Nicholson is stout, cheerful, and not clever, and the narrator half jokes that the gods dislike him. He grows up in Randolph Crescent in Edinburgh, in a house run like a fortress.
His father, David Nicholson, is a lawyer devoted to the church quarrels of Scotland. Prayers come at the same hour, and a pleasing gloom fills the rooms on Sundays. His sister Maria startles at everything, and his young brother Alexander is sickly, clever, and sharp tongued. John sits among them with clumsy affection and sudden laughter that rings through the quiet house like a curse.
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A forgotten errand with four hundred pounds drives John Nicholson from Edinburgh to California and into a nightmare.
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Details
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 3 h 40 min
- Level
- Medium level
- Paperback
- 156 pages · 6 × 9 in
- Hardcover
- 156 pages · 6 × 9 in
- Large print paperback
- 256 pages · 6 × 9 in
- Large print hardcover
- 256 pages · 6 × 9 in
- Delivery and returns
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For Christmas, order by Thu 12 Nov
Cite this edition
Stevenson, Robert Louis. Tales and Fantasies. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/tales-and-fantasies.
Stevenson, R. L. (2026). Tales and fantasies. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/tales-and-fantasies
Stevenson, Robert Louis. Tales and Fantasies. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/tales-and-fantasies.
@book{stevenson2026tales,
author = {Stevenson, Robert Louis},
title = {Tales and Fantasies},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/tales-and-fantasies}
}
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What is Tales and Fantasies about?
It collects three tales by Robert Louis Stevenson. One follows a young Edinburgh man whose small mistakes grow into a disaster. One tells of anatomy students and the bodies they buy. One is a love story built on a kind lie about a father.
Who is Fettes in The Body Snatcher?
Fettes is an old, drunken Scot who sits nightly in the parlor of the George inn at Debenham. As a young medical student in Edinburgh he worked for an anatomy teacher and was drawn into a dark secret with Wolfe Macfarlane.
Who is the Admiral in The Story of a Lie?
The Admiral is the nickname of Peter Van Tromp, a once-successful painter who now lives by sponging on others. Esther, his daughter, has not seen him since childhood and believes him a great artist, while Dick Naseby knows better.
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.
“They bring the body, and we pay the price”
More by Robert Louis Stevenson
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