Robert Louis Stevenson Museum, Literature museum in Apia, Samoa

The Robert Louis Stevenson Museum is housed in Villa Vailima, a restored mansion set on a wooded hill above Apia in Samoa. The building has five bedrooms, a library, and a fireplace, the only one built in Western Samoa at that time.

The Scottish writer had the house built to his own specifications and lived there until his death in 1894. Exactly one century later, the property opened as a museum.

The house displays personal objects from Stevenson's daily life, including a piano and a Rodin sculpture. The furnishings give a direct sense of how the writer and his family lived in this place.

The museum stands on a hill above Apia, and the walk from the centre takes about half an hour. Guided tours of the house run daily. A trail from the property climbs to Stevenson's grave at the top of Mount Vaea, a steep walk best started early in the day.

The museum was founded by American businessmen and Mormon missionaries Jim Winegar and Tilafaiga Rex Maughan, and it is run by a board that includes two representatives of the Samoan government. Most of the photography of Stevenson's Samoan years is held not here but at the Writers' Museum in Edinburgh, which also keeps the guns he used on the islands.