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The Bottle Imp (story) (1891)

As for why I sell so cheap, I must explain to you there is a peculiarity about the bottle. Long ago, when the devil brought it first upon earth, it was extremely expensive, and was sold first of all to Prester John for many millions of dollars; but it cannot be sold at all, unless sold at a loss. If you sell it for as much as you paid for it, back it comes to you again like a homing pigeon. It follows that the price has kept falling in these centuries, and the bottle is now remarkably cheap. I bought it myself from one of my great neighbours on this hill, and the price I paid was only ninety dollars. I could sell it for as high as eighty-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents, but not a penny dearer, or back the thing must come to me. Now, about this there are two bothers. First, when you offer a bottle so singular for eighty odd dollars, people suppose you to be jesting. And second — but there is no hurry about that — and I need not go into it. Only remember it must be coined money that you sell it for.”

With this one twist on the genie of the bottle tale, Robert Louis Stevenson deepened the implications and heightened the drama of ownership. He even created a mathematical paradox:

In Robert Louis Stevenson's "bottle imp paradox," you are offered the opportunity to buy, for whatever price you wish, a bottle containing a genie who will fulfill your every desire. The only catch is that the bottle must thereafter be resold for a price smaller than what you paid for it, or you will be condemned to live out the rest of your days in excruciating torment. Obviously, no one would buy the bottle for 1¢ since he would have to give the bottle away, but no one would accept the bottle knowing he would be unable to get rid of it. Similarly, no one would buy it for 2¢, and so on. However, for some reasonably large amount, it will always be possible to find a next buyer, so the bottle will be bought (Paulos 1995)

Writing after an extended visit to Hawaii in 1889, Stevenson gives us Keawe, a young islander who has enough money put aside to go traveling. In San Francisco, he sees an enchanting house and is beckoned inside by a figure within. The owner sells him a magic bottle–see above–and when Keawe returns home he too commands the genie/imp to build him a beautiful home. The plot thickens when he falls in love with a beautiful young girl and determines that he must get out from under the bottle’s curse, for if you fail to sell it before you die the Devil claims your soul.

The machinations involved in avoiding the paradox make the tale. I listened to B.J. Harrison’s excellent telling on the Classic Takes Podcast and thoroughly enjoyed the discovery.

(Reviewed:19-Aug-24)

Grade: (A)

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The blaze of hagiography in which he died seems to have incited critics to special fury. F. R. Leavis, in The Great Tradition, dismissed Stevenson as a romantic writer guilty of fine writing, and the critical community in general has designated him a minor author not worthy of the serious admiration that we accord his friend Henry James. People comment with amazement that Borges and Nabokov liked his work. This year marks the centenary of Stevenson's death, and I am not alone in believing that it is time to reconsider his reputation.

    -ESSAY: The story of Dr Jekyll, Mr Hyde and Fanny, the angry wife who burned the first draft (John Ezard, 24 Oct 2000, the Guardian)
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    -ESSAY: Jekyll/Hyde (Joyce Carol Oates, Winter 1988, The Hudson Review)
    -ESSAY: Robert Louis Stevenson: 10 strange facts about Jekyll and Hyde author (Martin Chilton, 3 DECEMBER 2015, The Telegraph)
    -ARTICLE: The terrifying ‘psychopath’ who inspired ‘Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde’ (Todd Venezia, November 6, 2016, NY Post)
    -ESSAY: The beast within: Freudian fable, sexual morality tale, gay allegory - Robert Louis Stevenson's classic novella of duality has inspired as many interpretations as it has film adaptations (James Campbell, 12 Dec 2008, The Guardian)

"Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" belongs to everyone who has ever referred to themselves in the third person, or cursed their own "split personality", or praised their "better nature". The poet Hugo Williams has compressed the essence into a single line - "God give me strength to lead a double life" - a plea to be in two places at once, not necessarily legitimately, without the inconvenience of a guilty conscience.

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The Bottle Imp (story) (1891)

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