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Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) |
Scottish essayist, poet, and author of fiction and travel books, known especially for his novels of adventure. Robert Louis Stevenson's characters often face the challenges and dangers of exploration and unknown. His most famous examination of the split personality is The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886). Arguing against realism, Stevenson underlined the "nameless longings of the reader," the desire for experience. "Even as good shone upon the countenance of the one, evil was written broadly and plainly on the face of the other. Evil besides (which I must still believe to be the lethal side of man) had left on that body an imprint of deformity and decay. And yet when I looked upon that ugly idol in the glass, I was conscious of no repugnance, rather of a leap of welcome. This, too, was myself.." (from Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, with an afterword by Jerome Charyn, Bantam Books, 1981, p. 84; first published in 1886 by Longmans, Green & Co.) Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson was born in Edinburgh. He was the only son of Thomas Stevenson, a prosperous joint-engineer to the Board of Northern Lighthouses, and Margaret Balfour, daughter of a Scottish clergyman. Thomas Stevenson invented, among others, the marine dynamometer, which measures the force of waves. Thomas's grandfather was Britain's greatest builder of lighthouses. Stevenson was largely raised by his nanny, Alison Cunningham,
whom he devoted A Child's Garden of
Verses
(1885). Cunningham had strong Calvinist convictions and praying became
part of Stevenson's daily activities. She is recalled in
the poem 'A Thought': "It is
very nice to think / The world is full of
meat and drink, / With little children saying grace / In every
Christian kind of place." (Ibid., with illustrations by Bessie Collins Pease, Dodge Publishing Company, 1905, p. 15) Since his childhood, Stevenson suffered from tuberculosis.
During
his early years, he spent much of his time in bed, composing stories
before he had learned to read. At the age of sixteen, he produced a
short historical tale. In 1858 he neatly died of gastric fever. As an adult, there were times when Stevenson
could not wear a jacket for fear of bringing on a haemorrhage of the
lung. In 1867, he entered Edinburgh University to study engineering. Due to his ill health, Stevenson had to abandon his plans to follow in his father's footsteps. He changed to law and in 1875 he was called to the Scottish bar. By then he had already started to write travel sketches, essays, and short stories for magazines. His first articles were published in The Edinburgh University Magazine (1871) and The Portofolio (1873). In
a attempt to improve his health, Stevenson travelled on the
Continent and in the Scottish Highland. These trips provided him with
many insights and inspiration for his writing, although sometimes could
take a long time before Stevenson edited for publication his notes and
sketches. He also suffered from writer's cramp. Stevenson was about
five feet 10 inches tall, very thin, with a narrow chest, long limbs
and a slight stoop. (Private Lives: Curious Facts about the Famous and Infamous by Mark Bryant, Cassell, 1996, p 291) Stevenson's tone in his travelogues is often jovial or
satirical, but he also had a sharp eye for social detail. Constant voyaging due to his poor health was not always easy
way of living. In a letter to Sidney Colvin,
written on his journey across the Atlantic in August 1879, he complained: "I
have a strange, rather horrible, sense of the sea before me, and can
see no further into future. I can say honestly I have at this moment
neither a regret, a hope, a fear or an inclination; except a mild one
for a bottle of good wine which I resist – O and one fear! a fear of getting wet." (Selected Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson, edited by Ernest Mehew, 2001, Yale University Press, 2001, p. 148) The Amateur Emigrant,
an account of this voyage, was not published until 1895. Stevenson
bought a second class ticket, which helped him to observe the
distinction between first-class passengers and others on board. Much of
his time Stevenson spent with the steerage passengers. He was surprised
how the mere presence of first class persons could have a freezing
effect below the decks. "It was astonishing wht insults these people
managed to convey by their presence. They seemed to throw their clothes
in our
faces. Their eyes searched us all over for tatters and incongruities. A
laugh was ready at their lips; but they were too well-mannered to
indulge it in our hearing. Wait a bit, till they were all back in the
saloon, and then hear how wittily they would depict the manners of the
steerage." (Ibid., with a preface by Mrs. Fanny Stevenson, Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2002, p. 33) Stevenson's own early favorite books, which influenced his imagination and thinking, included Shakespeare's Hamlet, Dumas's adventure tale of the elderly D'Artagan, Vicomte de Bragelone, and Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, "a book which tumbled the world upside down for me, blew into space a thousand cobwebs of genteel and ethical illusion, and having thus shaken my tabernacle of lies, set me back again upon a strong foundation of all the original and manly virtues." ('Books Which Have Influenced Me' by Robert Louis Stevenson, in Reading in Bed: Personal Essays on the Glories of Reading, selected edited by Steven Gilbar, David R. Godine, 1999, p. 36) Also Montaigne's Essais and the Gospel according to St. Matthew were very important for him. An account of Stevenson's canoe tour of France and Belgium was
published in 1878 as An Inland Voyage.
It was followed by Travels with a
Donkey in the Cévennes,
based on his walking trip in France, during which he learned to control
himself as well as his stubborn donkey. "For my part, I travel not to
go anywhere, but to go,"
Stevenson wrote. "I travel for the travel's sake. The great affair is
to move; to feel the needs and hitches of our life more nearly; to come
down of this feather-bed of civilisation, and find the globe granite
underfoot and strewn with cutting flints." (Ibid., illustrated by Nioel Rooke, Chatto and Windus, 1909, pp. 68-69) With his friend William
Ernest Henley he wrote several plays. While in France Stevenson met
Fanny Vandegrift Osbourne, a married woman with two children, Belle and
Lloyd. Fanny was 10 years older than Stevenson, who viewed her as an
"exotic goddess." She returned to the United States to get a divorce. In 1879 Stevenson followed her to California, where they got married. The first part of their honoymoon they spent near Calistoga, known for its hot springs. For two months they lived in an abandoned bunkhouse of the old Silverado silver mine. This stay in Napa Valley was recorded in The Silverado Squatters (1883). Not accustomed to life in the backwoods, the couple developed diphtheria, and as soon as they recovered, they went back to Scotland, where Stevenson suffered from catarrh. During the following years they moved often in search of better climates. Many of Stevenson's stories are set in colorful locations, they have also horror and supernatural elements. Stevenson gained first fame with the romantic adventure story Treasure Island, a combination of travel adventure and romance. This work, originally written for his stepson Lloyd, appeared first serialized in Young Folks 1881-82. Before its publication in book form Stevenson revised the text. The central character is Jim Hawkins, whose mother keeps an inn near the coast in the West Country. Jim meets an old pirate, Billy Bones, who has in his possession a map showing the location of Captain Flint's treasure. Bones dies after a second visit of his enemies. Jim, his mother, and a blind man named Pew, open Bones's sea chest and finds an oilskin packet containing the map. Squire Trelawney, Dr. Livesey, Jim, and a small crew with Captain Smollett sail for Treasure Island. Jim discovers that the crew of the Hispaniola includes pirates, led by a personable one-legged man named Long John Silver, the cook of the ship. On a journey to the island interior, Jim encounters Ben Gunn, former shipmate of the pirates. After several adventures the pirates are defeated, Jim befriends with Long John, and the treasure is found. Jim and his friends sail back to England. Long John Silver manages to escape, taking as much gold as he can carry. The famous poem from the novel ("Fifteen men on the dead man's chest— / Yo-ho-ho, and the bottle of rum! / Drink and the devil had done for the rest— / Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!) could have originally been "Fifteen men on the Dead Man's Chest . . ." referring to a Caribbean Island Dead Chest. According to a tale, the notorious pirate Edward Teach left fifteen men on the island of Dead Man's Chest, with a bottle of rum and a sword. A Child's Garden of Verses was a success – its poems
have also become popular as songs. Stevenson's other major works from
the 1880s are Kidnapped
(1886), the story of David Balfour, his distant ancestor, The
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, written and printed in 10
weeks, The Black Arrow
(1888), set in the era of the War of the Roses, and Master of Ballantrae (1889). Stevenson also contributed to various periodicals, including The Cornhill Magazine and Longman's Magazine, where his best-known article 'A Humble Remonstrance' was published in 1884. This replay to Henry James's 'The Art of Fiction' launched a lifelong friendship between the two authors. Stevenson saw that the novel is a selection of and reorganization of certain aspects of life – "Life is monstrous, infinite, illogical, abrupt and poignant; a work of art, in comparison, is neat, finite, self-contained, rational, flowing and emasculate. Life imposes by brute energy, like inarticulate thunder; art catches the ear, among the far louder noises of experience, like an air artificially made by a discreet musician." (from 'A Humble Remonstrance,' in Memories and Portraits, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1887, p. 285) The Wrong Box (1889) and The Wrecker (1892) were written Lloyd Osbourne, Stevenson's stepson. Readers believed that Stevenson just allowed his name to be used. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, published in
January of 1886, sold 40,000 copies in six months in Britain. Stevenson
once said, that its plot was revealed to him in a dream. The mystery
of Jekyll and Hyde is gradually revealed through the narratives of Mr
Enfield, Mr Utterson, Dr Lanyon, and Jekyll's butler Poole. Utterson,
Jekyll's lawyer, discovers that the nasty Mr. Edward Hyde is the heir
of Dr. Jekyll's fortune. Hyde is suspected of a murder. Utterson and
Poole break into Jekyll's laboratory and find the lifeless Hyde. Two
documents explain the mystery: Jekyll's old friend, the late Dr.
Lanyon, tells that Jekyll and Hyde are the same person. In his own
account Jekyll tells that to separate the good and evil aspects of his
nature, he invented a transforming drug. His evil self takes the form
of the repulsive Mr Hyde. Jekyll's supplies of drugs run out and he
finds himself slipping involuntarily into being Hyde. Jekyll kills
himself, but the last words of the confession are written by his alter
ego: "Here then, as I lay down the pen and proceed to seal up
my confession, I bring the life of that unhappy Henry Jekyll to an end." (Ibid., Bantam Books, 1981, p. 103) Like Victor Frankenstein' creation in Mary Shelley's famous novel, Hyde is a product of scientific experimentation. The story has been considered an criticism of Victorian double
morality, but it can be read as a comment on Charles Darwin's book The
Origin of Species
– Dr. Jekyll turns in his experiment the evolution backwards and
reveals the primitive background of a cultured human being. Henry James
admired Stevenson's "genuine feeling for the perpetual moral question,
a fresh sense of the difficulty of being good and the brutishness of
being bad". ('Robert Louis Stevenson' by Henry James
in Century Magazine
35, April 1888) Modern readers have set the story against Freudian sexual theories and the split in man's psyche between ego and instinct, although the "split" takes the form of a physical change, rather than inner dissociation. And it has been argued, that the conflict between Jekyll and Hyde reveals era's class phobias. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde has taken a place as an icon of popular culture and adapted among others into screen over 20 times. The novel was partly based on Stevenson's and W.E. Henley's play Deacon Brodia (1880), where an Edinburgh councilor is publicly respectable person, but privately a thief and rakehell. The basic theme of double personality has inspired such writers as Hans Christian Andersen ('The Ugly Duckling'), Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray), Bram Stoker (Dracula), and Franz Kafka, whose protagonist Gregor Samsa in 'The Metamorphosis' (1915) wakes to find himself transformed into a giant insect. Stevenson's father died in 1887. From the late 1880s,
Stevenson
lived with his family in the South Seas, where he had purchased an
estate in Vailima, Samoa. During this period of his life, Stevenson
enjoyed a comparative
good health. With his stepson Lloyd Osbourne he wrote The Wrong Box (1889)
and other works. He had nearly 20 servants and was known as "Tusitala"
or "Teller of the Tales". The writer himself translated it as "Chief
White Information." Fanny was called "Flying Cloud" – perhaps
referring to her restlessness. She had also suffered a mental breakdown
in 1893. Some of her friends thought that her many illnesses were "just
nerves". In his short story 'The Bottle Imp' (1891) set on the island of
Hawaii,
Stevenson asked the question, does a sudden luck of fortune wipe out
one's problems. Keawe, a poor man, buy's a bottle, tempered in the
flames of hell. An imp lives inside it and is at the buyer's command
fulfilling all desires. ""Here am I now upon my high place," he said to
himself. "Life may be no better; this is the mountain top; and all
shelves about me toward the worse. For the first time I will light up
the chambers, and bathe in my fine bath with the hot water and the
cold, and sleep above in the bed of my bridal chamber."" (The Bottle Imp, illustrated by Jacqueline Mair, Clarion Books, 1996, p. 30) Fascinated by the Polynesian culture, Stevenson wrote several letters to The Times on the islanders' behalf. Island Nights' Entertainments (1893) contains his famous story 'The Beach of Falesá.' The Ebb-Tide (1894) condemned the European colonial exploitation. Using the camera as an artistic tool, Stevenson integrated photography into his writing process, planning to add photograps as illustrations for his books about the South Seas.However, he abandoned the The South Seas in the early 1890s. According to a literary anecdote, Fanny Stevenson was once awakened in
the small hours of the morning by cries of horror by her husband.
Thinking he had a nightmare she awakened him. He said angrily: "Why did
you awaken me? I was dreaming a fine bogey tale." (The Wordsworth Book of Literary Anecdotes by Robert Hendrickson, Wordsworth Reference, 1997, p. 269) Robert Louis Stevenson died of a brain haemorrhage on December 3, 1894, in Vailima. Fanny Stevenson died of a stroke in 1914 in Santa Barbara, California. Her ashes were taken to Samoa and buried alonside her husband, on the summit of Mount Vaea. The local chiefs prohibited the use of firearms in the vicinity of the grave. (Private Lives: Curious Facts about the Famous and Infamous, p. 291) Stevenson's last work, Weir of Hermiston (1896), was left unfinished, but is considered his masterpiece. His best-known work of horror, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, has since his death prompted several sequels by other hands, including Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Holmes by Loren D. Estelman (1979), Jekyll, Alias Hyde: A Variation by Donald Thomas (1988), The Jekyll Legacy by Robert Bloch and Andre Norton (1990) and Mary Reilly by Valrie Matin (1990). For further reading: Robert Louis Stevenson by Frank Swinnerton (1915); Robert Louis Stevenson and the Fiction of Adventure by Robert Kiely (1964); Robert Louis Stevenson and Romantic Tradition by Edwin M. Eigner (1966); Robert Louis Stevenson: A Life Study by Jenni Calder (1980); Definitive Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde Companion by H.M. Geduld (1983); Robert Louis Stevenson by Frank McLynn (1993); Dreams of Exile: Robert Louis Stevenson: A Biography by Ian Bell (1993); A Robert Louis Stevenson Companion: A Guide to the Novels, Essays and Short Stories by J.R. Hammond (1984); The Edinburgh Literary Guide by Andrew Lownie (1992); Robert Louis Stevenson: A Biography by Frank McLynn (1993); Classic Horror Writers, edited by Harold Bloom (1994); Robert Louis Stevenson: Life, Literature and the Silver Screen by Scott Allen Nollen (1994); Robert Louis Stevenson and the Appearance of Modernism: A Future Feeling by Alan Sandison (1996); Louis: A Life of Robert Louis Stevenson by Philip Callow (2001); Health Biographies of Alexander Leeper, Robert Louis Stevenson & Fanny Stevenson by Max Banfield (2001); Birthright: The True Story That Inspired Kidnapped by A. Roger Ekirch (2010); Robert Louis Stevenson's Pacific Impressions: Photography and Travel Writing, 1888-1894 by Carla Manfredi (2018); Robert Louis Stevenson and the Art of Collaboration by Audrey Murfin (2019); Robert Louis Stevenson, Literary Networks and Transatlantic Publishing in the 1890s: The Author Incorporated by Glenda Norquay (2020); Robert Louis Stevenson: A Documentary Volume, edited by Patrick Scott (2021); A Wilder Shore: The Romantic Odyssey of Fanny and Robert Louis Stevenson by Camille Peri (2024) - Museums: Robert Louis Stevenson's childhood home, 17 Heriot Row, Edinburgh; The Writers' Museum, Lady Stair's Close, Lawnmarket - Suom.: Suomeksi on myös ilmestynyt 1998 Stevensonilta esseekokoelma Kävelyretkistä. Selected bibliography:
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