Weir of Hermiston: An Unfinished Romance was published posthumously by Chatto & Windus in 1896. Stevenson was dictating the novel on the afternoon of December 3, 1894, when he collapsed from a cerebral hemorrhage and died at his home in Vailima, Samoa. He was forty-four years old.
The fragment that survives — roughly nine chapters — is widely regarded as the finest prose Stevenson ever wrote. Archie Weir, a sensitive young Edinburgh law student, is in conflict with his father, Adam Weir, Lord Donatello — a hanging judge whose brutal administration of justice horrifies his son. After a public confrontation, Archie is banished to his father’s estate at Hermiston in the Scottish Borders, where he falls in love with Kirstie Elliott, a young woman from a violent Border family. The surviving text breaks off as the tragedy toward which the narrative is heading becomes visible but has not yet arrived.
Stevenson’s notes for the remaining chapters indicate that Archie would kill a man, be condemned to death by his own father, and be rescued from the gallows by Kirstie’s brothers — a conclusion that would have united the novel’s themes of justice, mercy, and the relationship between fathers and sons.
Collecting Weir of Hermiston
First edition (Chatto & Windus, London, 1896): Blue cloth. Published posthumously.
Market values:
- First edition, fine: $400–$1,000
- First edition, very good: $150–$400
- Good: $50–$150
Projected values (2026–2036): Moderate appreciation. Stevenson’s unfinished masterpiece.
The Unfinished Novel
Stevenson was dictating Weir of Hermiston on the afternoon he died of a cerebral haemorrhage in Samoa in December 1894. The fragment — about a judge’s son exiled to the Scottish borders for criticising his father’s brutal sentences — is widely regarded as the finest thing Stevenson ever wrote. The prose is more controlled, the psychology deeper, and the Scottish landscape more powerfully rendered than in any of his completed novels. What survives suggests a masterpiece that would have ranked with Hardy and Tolstoy.
Frequently Asked Questions
How did Stevenson die? Stevenson died of a cerebral haemorrhage on 3 December 1894, at his home Vailima in Samoa. He was 44 years old. Samoan chiefs carried his body to the summit of Mount Vaea, where he was buried. His tomb bears the inscription from his own poem Requiem: “Home is the sailor, home from sea, / And the hunter home from the hill.”