Joseph and Masterson Finsbury are two brothers, who entered a tontine with 37 other boys, when they were still children. In this tontine, subscribers share a common fund. Shares are being increased as the subscribers die, until the last survivor gets everything. Temptation and greed begin to spread among all participants, and strange things happens.

Who is Uncle Masterson and why is his dead body being shuffled around? Maybe he is not as dead as everyone thinks? Who are the Finsbury brothers and what is their role in the story? Who is going to inherit all the money from the tontine?

This story of false identities, greed and misunderstandings was published in 1889. Stevenson co-wrote this black humor mystery book with his stepson Lloyd Osbourne.



Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 – 1894) was a Scottish novelist, poet and travel writer. For most of his life, Stevenson suffered from serious bronchial trouble, but kept on travelling and writing. One of his first titles is “Treasure Island”, which is among his most popular novels, along with “Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde”, “Kidnapped” and “A Child’s Garden of Verses”. Stevenson’s works have been admired by many other authors.