Not I, and other poems /
Stevenson, Robert Louis,1850-1894.
Osbourne, Lloyd,1868-1947.
Davos-Platz : [Lloyd Osbourne],
Begun Feb. ended Oct. 1881.
Dedicated to Messrs. R. & R. Clarke by S.L. Osbourne Davos 1881.-- on verso of title page.
The tiny pamphlet 'Not I, and Other Poems', is among the rarest of all Stevensoniana. On medical advice, Stevenson, his wife and 12-year-old stepson Lloyd Osbourne, spent the winters of 1880-81 and 1881-82 at a health resort at Davos, Switzerland. A major amusement for Stevenson during these convalescences was writing poems for his stepson to print on the boy's small hand press. A total of only fifty copies were produced of 'Not I, and Other Poems'. The final page of the pamphlet serves as a wry colophon: 'The author and the printer, / With various kinds of skill, / Concocted it in winter / At Davos on the hill. / They burned the nightly taper / But now the work is ripe / Observe the costly paper, / Remark the perfect type! / begun Feb. ended Oct. 1881'. 'Not I, and Other Poems' makes a nice addition to the two other Davos Press publications held by the National Library of Scotland. These are 'Moral emblems: a Second Collection of Cuts and Verses' produced in 1882 (shelfmark RB.s.148), and a broadside announcing one of Osbourne's publications: 'Black Canyon, or, Wild adventures in the far West: an Instructive and Amusing Tale'. (shelfmark RB.s.1721)
Beinecke