The Wrong Box

The Wrong Box is one of Robert Louis Stevenson's strangest works. Written with his stepson Lloyd Osborne, it is a masterpiece of black comedy, turning on mistaken identity, the disappearance of a corpse, and several makeshift coffins. V. S. Pritchett described it as "a farce that slips down the throat with the nicety of an oyster," and, according to E. F. Benson, it is "perhaps the most superb extravaganza in the language." In this intriguing work, the Finsbury family has long been involved in a Tontine - a scheme in which subscribers invest money in a fund which them falls to the last survivor. Now there are only two aged uncles between Morris and John Finsbury and their fortune. A railway accident appears to dispose of one, and then the farce begins. In this eccentric and brilliantly plotted story, the authors not only extended the boundaries of good taste, but also satirized the popular Railway Novel genre, perplexing many Victorian readers.