THE WRONG BOX

New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1889. First edition. 8vo, publisher’s original olive green cloth, the upper cover with yellow paper label lettered in black, the spine gilt lettered. 244 pp, [4 ads]. A very fresh and attractive copy, the cloth with very minor mellowing. FIRST EDITION AND A VERY HANDSOME COPY of this black comedy co-written by Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne. The story is about the last two remaining survivors of a tontine, Joseph and Morris Finsbury who happen to be brothers. The last one of them to die will receive a fortune.
The book is the first of three novels that Stevenson co-wrote with his stepson, Lloyd Osbourne. Osbourne wrote the first draft of the novel late in 1887 under the working-title “The Finsbury Tontine.” Stevenson revised it in 1888 and again in 1889 when it was finally given its finished name, THE WRONG BOX.
The edition appears in a number of binding variants (no priority--as to the colour of the cloth and lettering label). As a marketing gimmick Scribner’s affixed a printed scrap of newspaper, like one appearing in the novel, to the upper cover. The “scrap” was so convincing however that it was often taken as a flaw and on most copies had been scraped off, perhaps often before even leaving the original book shop. That is the case with this copy and there is bit of remaining evidence on the upper cover where the scrap had once been tipped on.