In 1890, the year after first reaching Samoa but before he had properly settled there, Stevenson and his stepson planned and began what they intended to be a huge novel, a black, ugly, trampling, violent story, full of strange scenes and striking characters. It took them until 1893 to finish the story. It seems to be that Stevenson realized he had taken his spade too deep in the black depths of human nature. His metier had mostly been the dark primitive passions of the race, but not even the conception of pure evil in Mr. Hyde is more repulsive than the trio of villainy in The Ebb Tide, where it is heightened against the dazzling beauty of the Pacific seas and beaches.
