Document Type
Book
Abstract
This illustrated large-format documentary biography, vol. 388 in the Dictionary of Literary Biography series, presents Stevenson's life and works through a sequence of letters, reviews and other documents, with introductions and linking commentary. The volume includes some 275 short extracts (most prose, some verse), 51 side-bars of additional background information, and just under 150 illustrations, including maps, manuscript items, and photographs of people, places, and early editions. (The link here to the publisher's page gives a list of the main sections, not a full contents list.) Chapters cover Stevenson's early life in Edinburgh and first years at Edinburgh University; his first years as a writer, when he also qualified as a Scottish lawyer, and published essays, short stories, and travel books; the year when he sailed to America on an emigrant ship, crossed the continent to California on an emigrant train, and eventually married Fanny Osbourne; his chronic ill health in the 1880s, in Switzerland, Scotland, France, and then on the English South coast, when he also wrote the works for which he now most widely known, Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Strange Tale of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and when he became involved in two important debates, about the profession of authorship and the nature of fiction; and the final phases of his life, in upstate New York, cruising the Pacific, and settling in Samoa, as a champion of island cultures against colonial ambitions. Major works from this later phase include three Scottish novels, The Master of Ballantrae, Catriona, and the unfinished Weir of Hermiston. A brief final section looks at reaction to his work in the years after his death in Samoa, age 44.
Publication Info
Volume 388, 2021.