Otto likes to hunt and enjoy life, while leaving the rule of his small kingdom in the hands of his wife and her trusted advisor. He hears talk of socialist revolution in his land, and when he tries to take charge, he finds that it’s not so easy to resume his rule. With intrigue and betrayal at every corner, all the players must figure out where they really stand. Prince Otto was one of Robert Louis Stevenson’s earlier works. It didn’t have the success of Treasure Island, but it was, according to Stevenson, his hardest effort of any work, before or after. This book is part of the Standard Ebooks project, which produces free public domain ebooks.

Stevenson's second longer work of fiction is the greatest imaginable jump from the buccaneering story of Treasure Island with which he first came before a large public. Prince Otto is difficult to classify; it is not, as R. L. S. wrote, ' a romance, nor yet a comedy, nor yet a romantic comedy, but a kind of preparation of some of the elements of all these in a glass jar.' It is, more than anything else, a piece of Stevenson's paradoxical philosophy wrought into a story which, for one thing, has a very slender interest and, for another, is all the while very near to being overwhelmed by the rich beauty of its writing. Stevenson's theme seems to be: Let us have done with this artificial life of courts which chokes a man's healthy tastes, and is a breeding ground for vanity and scandal. Such is the interpretation which the story bears from his declaration to Henley that ' the romance lies precisely in the freeing of two spirits from these court intrigues.' The delicacy with which this motive is woven into the picture of the affairs of Otto and his princess may justify the opinion, often expressed, that the book is the touchstone for the true Stevensonian.

�AT last, after so many years, I have the pleasure of re-introducing you to `Prince Otto,' whom you will remember a very little fellow, no bigger in fact than a few sheets of memoranda written for me by your kind hand. The sight of his name will carry you back to an old wooden house embowered in creepers; a house that was far gone in the respectable stages of antiquity and seemed indissoluble from the green garden in which it stood, and that yet was a sea-traveller in its younger days, and had come round the Horn piecemeal in the belly of a ship, and might have heard the seamen stamping and shouting and the note of the boatswain's whistle. It will recall to you the nondescript inhabitants now so widely scattered:-- the two horses, the dog, and the four cats, some of them still looking in your face as you read these lines;-- the poor lady, so unfortunately married to an author;-- the China boy, by this time, perhaps, baiting his line by the banks of a river in the Flowery Land;-- and in particular the Scot who was then sick apparently unto death, and whom you did so much to cheer and keep in good behaviour. �

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) was a Scottish novelist, poet, travel writer, and essayist. He was a celebrity during his lifetime for works like “Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” and “Treasure Island.” Now he is one of the most translated authors in the world. Unlike many other Stevenson’s novels, “Prince Otto” is a love story. Because of the royal responsibilities, Prince Otto and his wife start to lose interest in each other. The web of palace conspiracies and discord, they both change drastically. The masks fall off, revealing their real characters and intentions.

". . . a remarkably interesting work and a splendid example of what Stevenson could do even when writing at his ordinary best rather than his very best." - Graham Tulloch, Professor, Faculty of Education, Humanities, Law and Theology Flinders University Prince Otto: A Romance (1883) by Robert Louis Stevenson recounts the story of young dilettante who is faced with overcoming a sequence of challenges-to his kingdom, to his wife, and to his own life-in order to determine what is important to him. At the end, he learns the value of growing up. This book is packed with romance, drama, and beautifully drawn characters. Eight years in the writing, this is the author's only work of romantic fiction and considered a masterful work.