What many don't know is that good old Stevenson could get quite dark. His work, "The Ebb-Tide for instance is saturated with physical and moral decay from page one to the end. There are scenes that would earn this a hard R rating in any movie format. There is of course a moral of sorts at the end, if you squint a bit. But like Hemingway and London the old master had a dark side that came out in his works. This is not something that I would suggest for children or young teens but for mature readers it offered a shiver inducing look at the evil that is associated with weakness rather than the evil that is associated with strength.