Abstract
The forces which mould the life and character of an imaginative writer are many and complex. It is a fascinating process to disentangle the combination of factors — hereditary, temperamental and psychological — which contribute towards the making of a novelist and shape the attitude of mind that permeates his writings. In the case of Stevenson the process is unusually interesting for in his life, his philosophy and his work he represents a fusion of emotions and attitudes which are at once peculiarly Scottish and highly relevant to the literature of our age. At the same time he marks a significant departure from the nineteenth century literary tradition whose work anticipates the didactic fiction of Conrad and Wells.
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Notes
‘Rosa Quo Locorum: Random Memories’.
For a detailed discussion of the two Edinburghs see Moray McLaren, Stevenson and Edinburgh (London: Chapman and Hall, 1950).
See, for example, Jenni Calder, RLS: A Life Study (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1980) pp. 53–7
And Paul Binding, Introduction to Weir of Hermiston and Other Stories (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1979) pp. 15–16.
RLS to Charles Baxter, 2 February 1873.
Janet Adam Smith, R. L. Stevenson (London: Duckworth, 1937) p. 79.
RLS to Mrs. Sitwell, June 1875.
RLS to Henry James, August 1890.
RLS to R. A. M. Stevenson, June 1894.
Quoted in Smith, op.cit., p. 126.
RLS to Charles Baxter, 1 December 1892.
RLS to Colvin, August 1879; RLS to Miss Monroe, June 1886.
RLS to R. A. M. Stevenson, June 1894.
‘A College Magazine’.
RLS to Baxter, 5 December 1881.
Cf. Wells, The Island of Doctor Moreau and the Croquet Player, Golding, The Lord of the Flies.
See, for example, Heathercat, The Young Chevalier and the Great North Road.
Henry James, ‘Robert Louis Stevenson’, Century Magazine, April 1888, xxxv, pp. 869–79.
RLS to Marcel Schwob, 19 August 1890; RLS to Colvin, 29 April 1891.
Cf. RLS to Colvin, 1 May 1892.
Henry James, op.cit.
On his death Stevenson left eight unfinished novels, in addition to Weir of Hermiston and St. Ives. These fragments are reprinted in Volume 16 of the Tusitala Edition.
Conan Doyle, Through the Magic Door, p. 245.
G. B. Stern, Introduction to The Tales and Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson.
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© 1984 J. R. Hammond
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Hammond, J.R. (1984). The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson. In: A Robert Louis Stevenson Companion. Palgrave Macmillan Literary Companions. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-06080-1_1
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