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<\/p>\nRobert Louis Stevenson is best known for adventure books like \u201cTreasure Island\u201d and \u201cKidnapped\u201d and for the macabre novella \u201cThe Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.\u201d He brought to his work both imagination and a serious dedication to craft, and his writing often seems strikingly modern \u2013 most notably in his willingness to plumb the inner lives of characters.<\/p>\n
As Leo Damrosch explains in \u201cStoryteller,\u201d his new biography, Stevenson\u2019s \u201cstories have a driving energy \u2013 he called it \u2018kinetic\u2019 \u2013 that is sustained by a tactile experience of time and place, not as a description but as a re-creation of how it felt.\u201d<\/p>\n
Damrosch argues that the writer\u2019s wider body of work deserves more attention and respect. \u201cStevenson\u2019s novels and stories combine two different kinds of excellence that aren\u2019t often found together: he is at once an exacting craftsman and a spellbinding narrator,\u201d he writes. \u201cGerard Manley Hopkins, whose own poems are so knotty, said that \u2018Stevenson is a master of a consummate style, and each phrase is finished as in poetry.\u2019 There are no wasted words.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\tFrom \u201cStevensoniana: An Anecdotal Life and Appreciation,\u201d Edited by J.A. Hammerton, John Grant, 1910\n<\/p>\n
Robert Louis Stevenson is captured in the portrait \u201cLouis in Bournemouth\u201d by Sir Percy Shelley.<\/p>\n
Why We Wrote This<\/p>\n
Robert Louis Stevenson\u2019s willingness to plumb the inner lives of characters gives his stories a strikingly modern feel. In the new biography \u201cStoryteller,\u201d Leo Damrosch argues that Stevenson\u2019s wider body of work \u2013 beyond his celebrated children\u2019s novels and poems \u2013 deserves greater attention and respect.<\/p>\n
Stevenson was born in 1850 in Edinburgh, Scotland, and died on a Pacific island in 1894, near the dawn of the 20th century. For many years following his death, he was widely disparaged as a quaint, velvet-jacketed, bohemian figure. In the literary world, he has been categorized \u2013 and often dismissed \u2013 as merely a children\u2019s author and poet. After decades of exclusion from \u201cThe Norton Anthology of English Literature,\u201d Stevenson\u2019s \u201cDr. Jekyll\u201d was added in 2000 \u2013 a curious selection, perhaps, since it \u201cis far from typical of his writing and was known mainly in film adaptations,\u201d Damrosch writes.<\/p>\n
Damrosch\u2019s book has arrived amid a brighter spotlight on Stevenson\u2019s life and legacy. Camille Peri\u2019s 2024 \u201cA Wilder Shore\u201d offered a dual biography of Stevenson and his American wife, Fanny, who has long been criticized as a drain on his career. Like Peri, Damrosch presents a more sympathetic view of Fanny as a key partner in his domestic and professional life.<\/p>\n
Given Stevenson\u2019s challenges, the presence of a helpmate became especially significant. Born into a prominent Scottish family best known for building lighthouses, he dealt with lung problems from childhood into adulthood, often following the common advice to travel as a remedy. Stevenson tried both cold and hot climates, seeing much of the world in the bargain. After traveling around the South Sea Islands, he lived the last four years of his life in Vailima, Samoa. Such destinations fueled his creativity and drive to succeed as a writer, a profession that marked a dramatic departure from the Stevenson family tradition of engineering.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
\t\t\tFrom \u201cThe Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson\u201d by Nellie Van De Grift Sanchez, Scribner, 1921\n<\/p>\n
Fanny Stevenson, the writer\u2019s American wife, traveled with her husband and took care of him during his bouts of ill health. She also served as a sounding board and editor for his writing.<\/p>\n
Although he\u2019s more celebrated today as a novelist, Stevenson\u2019s first successes were travel books, including \u201cTravels With a Donkey in the C\u00e9vennes,\u201d his 1879 account of a ramble through the mountains of southern France with a donkey named Modestine. The generally charming tale is jarred by Stevenson\u2019s confession that he beat Modestine to force her compliance, a detail that \u201ccasts a pall over the theme of interior pilgrimage,\u201d Damrosch writes.<\/p>\n
Such passages remind readers that Stevenson wasn\u2019t always above the casual cruelties of his time. On many other levels, though, he could be visionary. His embrace of Indigenous culture during his final years in Samoa \u2013 and his support for the cause of Samoan independence \u2013 suggested an openness to worlds beyond his own, modeling our contemporary ideal of the global citizen.<\/p>\n
As a traveler, he displayed a striking gift for capturing not only geographical detail but the essential character and personality of a locale. In \u201cThe Old Pacific Capital,\u201d he reports from Monterey, California, on \u201cthe haunting presence of the ocean,\u201d noting that \u201cgo where you will, you have to pause and listen to hear the voice of the Pacific.\u201d A more conventional writer would have indulged the standard view of the California shore as a sunny idyll. But Stevenson is also alert to the ocean\u2019s undeniable claims on a visitor\u2019s attention \u2013 an insistence that\u2019s not simply calming, but a bit eerie.<\/p>\n
A faint note of melancholy gives much of Stevenson\u2019s work, even his tales and poems that are ostensibly aimed at children, an arresting texture. In \u201cThe Land of Counterpane,\u201d a poem about a boy in bed with his toys, the cheerful rhythm of the rhyme resonates with a poignant undercurrent because we sense the child\u2019s loneliness. In the brightly expressed poem \u201cMy Shadow,\u201d the dark doppelg\u00e4nger that follows the reader everywhere is amusing and playful, but also somewhat spectral.<\/p>\n
As an RLS scholar, Damrosch has many predecessors, including Frank McLynn and his magisterial 1994 biography. Damrosch writes: \u201cI try to illuminate Stevenson\u2019s achievement as a writer more fully than others have done; they seem often to assume that his works are already familiar to readers, which is generally not the case.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTreasure Island,\u201d \u201cKidnapped,\u201d and \u201cDr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde\u201d still sell well and would not seem to desperately need a new champion. But Damrosch\u2019s survey of the rest of Stevenson\u2019s work, including his genius as an essayist and letter writer, is welcome. In \u201cThe Club,\u201d Damrosch\u2019s sharply observed 2019 book about the social circle surrounding 18th-century lexicographer Samuel Johnson, the author deftly placed readers within the teeming London milieu that quickened Johnson\u2019s capacious intellect.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Lamplighter\u201d (illustration by Norman Wilkinson) accompanied Stevenson\u2019s children\u2019s poem of the same name. The poem was first published in \u201cA Child\u2019s Garden of Verses\u201d in 1885. <\/p>\n
\nThe Lamplighter<\/b><\/p>\n
My tea is nearly ready and the sun has left the sky;<\/p>\n
It\u2019s time to take the window to see Leerie going by;<\/p>\n
For every night at teatime and before you take your seat,<\/p>\n
With lantern and with ladder he comes posting up the street.<\/p>\n
Now Tom would be a driver and Maria go to sea,<\/p>\n
And my papa\u2019s a banker and as rich as he can be;<\/p>\n
But I, when I am stronger and can choose what I\u2019m to do,<\/p>\n
Oh Leerie, I\u2019ll go round at night and light the lamps with you!<\/p>\n
For we are very lucky, with a lamp before the door,<\/p>\n
And Leerie stops to light it as he lights so many more;<\/p>\n
And O! before you hurry by with ladder and with light,<\/p>\n
O Leerie, see a little child and nod to him tonight!<\/p>\n
\u2013 Robert Louis Stevenson<\/b><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\u201cStoryteller\u201d is a less immersive read than \u201cThe Club,\u201d partly because some of Damrosch\u2019s cultural references can seem glancing. One sometimes wishes for a deeper dive into characters such as Leslie Stephen, the influential magazine editor whose publication of Stevenson\u2019s essays and stories was an early boost. As Damrosch notes, Stephen is best known today as the father of Virginia Woolf. The chance to sketch out Stephen more fully feels like a missed opportunity.<\/p>\n
Stevenson was also an astute literary critic, and this aspect of his career also begs for more exploration in \u201cStoryteller.\u201d His closely argued, perceptive, and sometimes humorous essay on Henry David Thoreau gets only passing mention here. Like Thoreau, Stevenson had a reputation as a carefree dawdler, an image that in both men belied their industry and ambition.<\/p>\n
\u201cStevenson\u2019s published output was remarkable,\u201d Damrosch writes, noting 11 novels, more than 100 essays, and several hundred poems. Such an oeuvre defies easy summary, though author Richard Holmes came close. Stevenson, he wrote, \u201cmade the dreams of childhood sing with adult possibilities.\u201d<\/p>\n
In \u201cStoryteller,\u201d those possibilities sing again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Robert Louis Stevenson is best known for adventure books like \u201cTreasure Island\u201d and \u201cKidnapped\u201d and for the macabre…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":361921,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3938],"tags":[3444,77,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-361920","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115066542963376437","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/361921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}