This wide-ranging collection is the first to set Robert Louis Stevenson in detailed social, political and literary contexts. The book takes account of both Stevenson's extraordinary thematic and generic diversity and his geographical range. The chapters explore his relation to late nineteenth-century publishing, psychology, travel, the colonial world, and the emergence of modernism in prose and poetry. Through the pivotal figure of Stevenson, the collection explores how literary publishing and cultural life changed across the second half of the nineteenth century. Stevenson emerges as a complex writer, author both of hugely popular boys' stories and of seminally important adult novels, as well as the literary figure who debated with Henry James the theory of fiction and the nature of realism. The collection shows how interest in the unconscious and changes in the conception of childhood demand that we re-evaluate our ideas of his writing. Individual essays by international experts trace Stevenson' literary contexts from Scotland to the South Pacific, and show him to be one of the key writers for understanding the growing sense of globalisation and cultural heterogeneity in the late nineteenth century. Key Features * Sets Stevenson in his literary, scientific and political contexts * Covers a broad range of Stevenson's fiction and non-fiction * Written by a team of international scholars * Includes an authoritative introduction and select bibliography
About the AuthorPenny Fielding is Senior Lecturer in English and Scottish Literature at the University of Edinburgh and one of the General Editors of the New Edinburgh Edition of the Collected Works of Robert Louis Stevenson. Her books include Scotland and the Fictions of Geography: North Britain 1760-1830 (CUP, 2008) and Writing and Orality: Nationality, Culture and Nineteenth-Century Scottish Fiction (OUP, 1996) as well as an edition of Scott's The Monastery for the Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley Novels (Edinburgh EUP, 2000).
Book InformationISBN 9780748635559
Author Penny FieldingFormat Paperback
Page Count 208
Imprint Edinburgh University PressPublisher Edinburgh University Press
Weight(grams) 318g