Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson

by Evgenia Sheremetyeva

Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson?

Who is it?

Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer.

(13 Nov. 1850 – 3 Dec. 1894)

Okay, but still, who is it?

Have you ever heard of such books as…

Treasure Island Kidnapped Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr.

Hyde

It was he who wrote them.

He was born in Edinburgh on 13 November 1850. His father Thomas belonged to a family of engineers. And he wanted him to be an engineer too.

Then he studied law, Stevenson “passed advocate" in 1875 but did not practice since he wanted to be a writer. His first published work was an essay called "Roads", and his first published volumes were works of travel writing.

Ediburgh

The meeting with his future wife, Fanny, changed the rest of his life. She was thirty-six, an independent American "New Woman", separated from her husband and with two children.

After Fanny obtained a divorce, she and Robert were married in San Francisco in May 1880.

Fanny

Now, let's examine his best and most popular works…

Short Stories

The form had been elaborated and developed in America, France and Russia from the mid-19th century. It was Stevenson who initiated the British tradition.

His first published fictional narrative was:

"A Lodging for the Night" (1877), "The Sire De Maletroit’s Door" (1877), "Providence and the Guitar" (1878), "The Pavilion on the Links" (1880),

considered by Conan Doyle in 1890 as "the high-water mark of [Stevenson’s] genius" and "the first short story in the world".

Treasure Island and "Children's Literature"

One rainy day in 1881 Stevenson and his twelve-year-old stepson, Lloyd, drew the map of an imaginary "Treasure Island". The map stimulated Stevenson’s imagination and, he began to write a story based on it as an entertainment for the rest of the family.

“Treasure Island” marks the beginning of his popularity, it was his first volume-length fictional narrative, and the first of his writings "for children”.

“Kidnapped” was from this range of his writing for children too.

And how about “Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”? Is it of this range too?

No, “Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” is a horror book, a try to rethink the "split personality” theme that was very popular among the Romantic movement of XVIII-XIX century. By the way, this book and the characters were very often used in films, cartoons, etc.

Novels and Romances

«Weir of Hermiston», Stevenson's very Scottish romance, was written when Stevenson was far away on the other side of the world. His decision to sail around the Pacific in 1888, living on various islands for short periods, then setting off again, was another turning point in his life.

What is the secret of his success?

1)Stevenson establishes a personal relationship with the reader, and creates a sense of wonder through his brilliant style and his adoption and manipulation of a variety of genres.

2)Writing when the period of the three-volume novel was coming to an end, he seems to have written everything except a traditional Victorian novel:

plays, poems, essays, literary criticism, literary theory, biography, travelogue, reportage, romances, boys’ adventure stories, fantasies, fables, and short stories.

3)Like the other writers who were asserting the serious artistic nature of the novel at this time he writes in a careful, almost poetic style - yet he provocatively combines this with an interest in popular genres.

Robert Stevenson was a literary celebrity during his lifetime, Stevenson now ranks among the 26 most translated authors in the world. And this fame is obviously not undeserved!

Are you agree? You can easily examine it yourself.

Thank you!

Done By:Evgenia SheremetyevaYou can find me here

https://www.diigo.com/user/owl_cat

Resourse:The site about Robert Stevenson

http://www.robert-louis-stevenson.org/