Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 - 1894) was a Scottish novelist, poet, and essayist, best known for his classicn ovels, such as Treasure Island. This volume includes "The Dynamiter," a collection of connected short stories by Stevenson, including: Prologue of the Cigar Divan, Zero's Tale of the Explosive Bomb, and Story of the Fair Cuban.
Although Robert Louis Stevenson was a late Victorian, his work--especially Treasure Island and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde--still circulates energetically and internationally among popular and academic audiences and among young and old. Admired by Henry James, Vladimir Nabokov, and Jorge Luis Borges, Stevenson's fiction crosses the boundaries of genre and challenges narrow definitions of the modern and the postmodern. Part 1 of this volume, "Materials," provides an introduction to the writer's life, a survey of the criticism of his work, and a variety of resources for the instructor. In part 2, "Approaches," thirty essays address such topics as Stevenson's dialogue with James about literature; his verse for children; his Scottish heritage; his wanderlust; his work as gothic fiction, as science fiction, as detective fiction; his critique of imperialism in the South Seas; his usefulness in the creative writing classroom; and how Stevenson encourages expansive thinking across texts, times, places, and lives.
"Of all my verse, like not a single line; But like my title, for it is not mine." -Robert Louis Stevenson, Underwoods Underwoods (1887), by Robert Louis Stevenson, is a collection of original poetry that Stevenson wrote during one of the most prolific periods of his career. Like his more famous collection, A Child's Garden of Verses, it was inspired by the author's own childhood and is written in both English and his native Scots.
On 23 September 1878 Stevenson set out from Le Monastier in the Haut Loire, to tramp through the wild region of the Cevennes. His only companion was a small donkey to carry basic necessities, and a commodious "sleeping sack". In the next 12 days, at a pace dictated by the donkey and carrying most of the supplies himself, he travelled 120 miles across rivers, mountains and forests. His stylish and witty account was published in 1879.
The short life of Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-94) was as adventurous as almost anything in his fiction: his travels, illness, struggles to become a writer, relationships with his volatile wife and step-family, friendships and quarrels have fascinated readers for over a century. In his time he was both engineer and aesthete, dutiful son and reckless lover, Scotsman and South Sea Islander, Covenanter and atheist. Stevenson's books, including Treasure Island, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Kidnapped, have achieved world fame; others -- The Master of Ballantrae, A Child's Garden of Verses, Travels with a Donkey -- remain all-time favourites.