Page:Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson, Hitherto unpublished, 1921.djvu/19

 THE STEVENSON MANUSCRIPTS

At the time when the great mass of manuscripts, books, and other personal belongings of Robert Louis Stevenson were dispersed through a New York auction room in November 1914, and January 1915, the whole of civilization was being shaken to its very foundations, and the exigencies of the times were such that people were concerned with more important matters than the acquisition of manuscripts and relics. Therefore the sale, which in ordinary times would have attracted widespread attention among editors, critics, publishers and collectors, went comparatively unnoticed amid the general clamor and apprehension of the time. There was, however, one vigilant Stevenson collector, in the person of Mr. Francis S. Peabody, who bought a large part of the unpublished manuscripts at the sale, and has since acquired most of [ 13 ]