5 h 24 minAudiobook8 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if your chance to escape ruin asks you to sink even lower?
On the waterfront at Papeete, three men have almost nothing left. Robert Herrick is educated, ashamed and desperate to escape himself. Captain Davis wants to recover the name he loses through drink. Huish wants money, whatever the cost. When the schooner Farallone needs a crew, these stranded drifters see a way out of failure. But opportunity brings a hard moral test.
In The Ebb-Tide, Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne turn a South Seas adventure into a sharp study of conscience. A ship, a stolen cargo and a lonely island draw the men into deeper danger. Each carries a different kind of failure, and each wants something different from escape. The plot moves quickly, while one question presses closer: what will they do to save themselves?
What you’ll discover
- Three faces of failure Meet men whose shame, pride and greed give desperation a painfully human shape.
- A chance at sea Follow the Farallone as the promise of escape becomes a test of conscience.
- Adventure without easy comfort Enter a South Seas tale where danger offers no simple escape from moral choices.
- Ruin by small steps Explore moral collapse as a process, rather than a single terrible act.
- A darker Stevenson Discover a tense, unsentimental story that trades sunny confidence for hard questions.
Who will love it
For readers who love adventure with a conscience, moral conflict and character study, and anyone curious about Stevenson's darker side or the colonial Pacific.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Three failed men wait on the beach
- A ship with a dead crew offers a chance
- The cargo changes everything
- An island of pearls and a strange host
- What the story says about ruin and conscience
- How two writers made a tense, bleak tale
Who’s who
- Robert HerrickAn educated Englishman who has drifted to the Pacific, he is sensitive and ashamed of his failures, and he longs to be rescued from himself.
- Captain DavisAn American sailor who lost his ship through drink, he is proud and rough, and he is desperate to recover his place and his name.
- HuishA Cockney clerk turned drifter, he is small, spiteful and cunning, and he wants money by whatever means come to hand.
- AttwaterThe white master of a lonely pearl island, he is cultured, severe and deeply religious, and he is far sharper than he first appears.
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- Audiobook
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- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
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- Large print hardcover
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The Ebb-Tide
by Robert Louis Stevenson; Lloyd Osbourne · 1894
Three ruined men in Tahiti seize a chance at sea, where stolen cargo puts their consciences to the test.
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In short
The Ebb-Tide is a short novel of the South Seas, written by Robert Louis Stevenson with his stepson Lloyd Osbourne and published in 1894, the year Stevenson died. By then Stevenson was living in Samoa.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Three failed men wait on the beach
The story opens in Papeete, the port of Tahiti, among the men known as beachcombers. These are white drifters who have lost their jobs, their money and often their self respect. They sleep in a broken old prison building and live on scraps, favours and whatever the tide brings. Stevenson pictures a tropical town that looks beautiful but offers these men nothing at all.
Three of them stand at the centre. Robert Herrick is an educated Englishman, a man of university and good manners, who has never managed to make anything of his gifts. He is gentle and troubled, and he knows exactly how far he has fallen. Captain Davis is an American sailor who once held command of a ship and lost it through drink. He is a big, blunt man, and his pride still hurts him.
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What is The Ebb-Tide about?
It tells of three down-and-out white men in Tahiti who get the chance to sail a schooner to Sydney, then choose a darker path. The book is a story of temptation, guilt and the cost of moral weakness.
Who wrote The Ebb-Tide?
Robert Louis Stevenson wrote it with his stepson Lloyd Osbourne. It was published in 1894, the year Stevenson died in Samoa, where he had lived for several years and gathered much of his knowledge of Pacific life.
Who is Attwater in The Ebb-Tide?
Attwater is the white master of a remote pearl island. He is educated, devout and commanding, and his conversations with the visitors, especially Herrick, form the book's central moral contest.
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.
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