Stevenson’s Literary Achievement

Abstract

Critical reactions to the life and work of Robert Louis Stevenson fall into three phases. His death in 1894 was followed by two decades of excessive adulation, fostered unwittingly by his family and friends. During this period appeared a number of hagiographical studies and appreciations which sedulously fostered the legend of the upright, manly Stevenson — a saint like figure who could do no wrong and whose writings, including the most ephemeral, were held to be worthy of literary immortality. This phase came to an end in 1914 with the publication of Frank Swinnerton’s R. L. Stevenson: A Critical Study, a work which sought to redress the balance by presenting a dispassionate critique of the works and concentrating discussion on the writings as distinct from the personality. Swinnerton’s was the first of a series of depreciatory studies which, partly as a reaction against the exaggerated praise following Stevenson’s death, sought to demolish the wholly uncritical image fostered by his supporters and to draw attention to the more fallible aspects of his life and achievement. The effect of these works, however, was to swing the critical pendulum too far in the opposite direction. For a long period he was regarded as a writer who represented values and attitudes which were now outmoded; a writer who had been overrated in his own lifetime and now was completely out of favour.