The Amateur Emigrant - Softcover

Evidently the title of this book was intended to apply to the whole story of Stevenson's journey to California in August 1879 to arrange his marriage with Mrs. Osbourne. The words fit the record of his experiences both as practically a steerage passenger and on the second stage of the journey —by rail across America—which forms the subject of ‘Across the Plains’. Its great realism, apart from the description of natural effects, was a new departure for Stevenson, who wrote that he had ' sought to be prosaic in view of the nature of the subject.'