Robert Louis Stevenson: A Literary Life

by William Gray

Overview

More than most writers, Robert Louis Stevenson requires a Literary Life. Fascination with Stevenson's life (the 'Stevenson biography' is almost a minor genre) has tended to eclipse his literary achievement. This study focuses on Stevenson's writing practice within the different geographical, cultural and political contexts that shaped it, from Scotland to the South Seas. Following Stevenson's own views on biography, the book is not structured primarily in terms of chronology, but is more a kind of literary geography than traditional literary history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780333984017
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan UK
Publication date:	03/12/2004
Series:	Literary Lives
Edition description:	2004
Pages:	190
Product dimensions:	5.51(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.39(d)

About the Author

WILLIAM GRAY is Professor of Literary History and Hermeneutics at the University of Chichester, UK. He studied literature, philosophy and theology at the Universities of Oxford, Edinburgh and Princeton, and has published widely in these areas, including Death and Fantasy and books on C.S. Lewis and Robert Louis Stevenson.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements Abbreviations Introduction and Chronology The English Scene The French Connection Forever Scotland America In the South Seas Conclusion Notes Index

Editorial Reviews

'A new book... mapping the bohemian life of Robert Louis Stevenson looks at the cocaine-fuelled convalescence that produced Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and a whole lot more besides.' - Phil Hewitt - Chichester Observer

'Gray's close reading is meticulous and intelligent so there's a sense that we're engaging with the real texture of Stevenson's life and work.' - The Scotsman

'With admirable economy, Gray delineates Stevenson's engagements with different literary cultures and traditions - he is especially good on the fertilizing effects of French literature on Stevenson's imagination - and then lays out the varied fruits of those engagements: essays, poems, letters, travelogues, plays, and prose fiction' - Stephen Arata, Victorian Studies 48 (Spring 2006)

From the Publisher