The New Lighthouse on the Dhu Heartach Rock, Argyllshire

In this first-ever publication of Robert Louis Stevenson's 4800-word essay, "The New Lighthouse on the Dhu Heartach Rock, Argyllshire" the young RLS tells the story of the construction of the Dhu Heartach lighthouse on the isolated, menacing rock fifteen miles at sea in the North Atlantic off the west coast off Scotland.The work was being done under contract to the Commissioners of Northern Lights by the Stevenson family engineering firm, and RLS actually, observed the construction first hand, on a visit in August 1870, during the fourth of the six summers that were required.Drafted in 1872 but never until now completed for publication, the essay is presented from the manuscript in the Huntington Library, San Marino, California, and augmented with material from the Northern Lighthouse Board, Edinburgh, the National Library of Scotland, and the Silverado Museum. It is the earliest of Stevenson's writings about this remote, wild area of the Scottish coast, to which he returned in "The Merry Men", "Kidnapped", and "Memoirs of an Islet".Besides RLS's essay, this edition also includes a number of unpublished scetches by RLS of scenes and people that he observed during his visit in 1870 and a substantial introduction by Roger G. Swearingen titled "Robert Louis Stevenson and Lighthouses".