Stevenson, Robert Louis. (1850 - 1894).
W o r k
- fascinated with horror x but: achieved great variety and invention
- employed small-town settings and the Scots vernacular > achieved a precise sense of Scottish place
- member of the Scottish ‘Kailyard School’ rooted in Walter Scott's work
< his historical fiction is influenced by W. Scott x but: lacks his urge to find a historical justice or justification
Treasure Island (1883):
- a famous boys’ story primarily intended for children readers
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886):
- a mystery story examining the divided self of Dr Jekyll, a London physician
- concludes with Jekyll’s suicide as the only effective release from his predatory alter ego Hyde
Kidnapped (1886) and its sequel Catriona (1893):
- historical novels set in the 18th century Scotland torn by Jacobite divisions
- concerned with deception, suspicion, injustice, and obligatory flight
The Master of Ballantrae: A Winter’s Tale (1889):
- a historical novel set in the aftermath of ‘The Forty-five Jacobite Rising’
- two politically and emotionally divided brothers symbolize the historic tensions within Scottish culture
The Beach at Falesá (1893) and The Ebb Tide (1894):
- South Sea adventure stories
Quote
"It was on the moral side, and in my own person, that I learned to recognise the thorough and primitive duality of man; I saw that, of the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both."
From The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886).
Basics
(Photo: Wikimedia Commons).
-
Author
Robert Louis (Balfour) Stevenson. (1850 - 1894). Scottish. -
Work
Novelist. Author of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886). -
Genres
Neo-Romanticism. Gothicism. Historical novel. Adventure novel.
Literature
Abrams, Meyer Howard, ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. New York: W. W. Norton, 1993.
Barnard, Robert. Stručné dějiny anglické literatury. Praha: Brána, 1997.
Baugh, Albert C. ed. A Literary History of England. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1967.
Coote, Stephen. The Penguin Short History of English Literature. London: Penguin, 1993.
Sampson, George. The Concise Cambridge History of English Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1946.
Sanders, Andrew. The Short Oxford History of English Literature. New York: Clarendon Press, 1994.