Post #630289 by TikiTomD on Tue, Mar 27, 2012 4:53 PM

Joe Strong, husband of Isobel (Belle), Louis’ step-daughter, is an interesting character. An artist and photographer, he was born in Connecticut but grew up in Honolulu and then Oakland, California. He married Isobel Osbourne, Fanny’s daughter by an earlier marriage, in 1879. Joe went island hopping in the South Seas with the Stevensons at their invitation. He and Belle joined RLS and family at Vailima in 1891. Joe was a friend of H.J. Moors, the American merchant in Apia. He had a long-standing affair with a Samoan woman. He also had a drinking and drug problem. Belle divorced him in 1892 for infidelity, and RLS legally adopted their son, Austin.

Joe Strong standing on the porch at Vailima...

Dan McNay has a novel in progress, The Truth About Treasure Island, where “Robert Louis Stevenson and Joe Strong, his friend and son-in-law, face off in the South Pacific.” The book’s premise is that an old diary of Joe Strong is found hidden behind the drawer of a beat up antique chess table cheaply acquired from a San Francisco thrift shop. The diary is an unvarnished recounting of Joe’s life in Samoa with the Stevensons, revealed for the first time in this book. You can read the partially completed novel, founded on what is actually known about Joe, at Dan’s web site. It’s an interesting read, so far. Caution: graphic descriptions of Joe’s sexual encounters with his young Samoan paramour, Fa`apio, are embedded in the story...

-Tom