Island Nights' Entertainments brings together a series of stories set in the islands of the South Pacific, where the apparent serenity of the tropical landscape is pierced by violence, superstition, and the moral conflicts arising from encounters between cultures. Traders, missionaries, adventurers, and native inhabitants coexist in remote settings in which greed, fear, and desire emerge with force, giving rise to extreme situations and unsettling revelations about human nature.

With a sober, precise, and richly atmospheric prose, Robert Louis Stevenson moves away from romantic exoticism to offer a critical and deeply modern view of colonialism and its shadows. Through eloquent silences and restrained tensions, these stories transform the tropical night into a living and disturbing presence, turning the book into an intense reflection on moral fragility, power, and the darkest corners of the human soul.

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) was a Scottish novelist, poet, and essayist, renowned for his works of adventure and fantasy that have endured as classics of world literature. Born in Edinburgh, he studied engineering and law, but his passion for writing led him to travel widely and to shape his experiences into stories rich in imagination. Among his best-known works are Treasure Island and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He died at the age of forty-four in Samoa, where he spent his final years and was deeply respected by the local community.