文档介绍：ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
ROBERT LOUIS
STEVENSON
BY A. H. JAPP
1
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
PREFACE
A FEW words may here be allowed me to explain one or two points.
First, about the facsimile of last page of Preface to FAMILIAR
STUDIES OF MEN AND BOOKS. Stevenson was in Davos when the
greater portion of that work went through the press. He felt so much
the disadvantage of being there in the circumstances (both himself and
his wife ill) that he begged me to read the proofs of the Preface for him.
This illness has record in the letter from him (pp. 28- 29). The printers,
of course, had directions to send the copy and proofs of the Preface to
me. Hence I am able now to give this facsimile.
With regard to the letter at p. 19, of which facsimile is also given,
what Stevenson there meant is not the "three last" of that batch, but the
three last sent to me before - though that was an error on his part - he
only then sent two chapters, making the "eleven chapters now" - sent to
me by post.
Another point on which I might have dwelt and illustrated by many
instances is this, that though Stevenson was fond of hob-nobbing with
all sorts and conditions of men, this desire of wide contact and
intercourse has little show in his novels - the ordinary fibre of
commonplace human beings not receiving much celebration from him
there; another case in which his private bent and sympathies received
little illustration in his novels. But the fact lies implicit in much I have
written.
I have to thank many authors for permission to quote extracts I have
used.
ALEXANDER H. JAPP.
2
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
CHAPTER I - INTRODUCTION
AND FIRST IMPRESSIONS
MY little effort to make Thoreau better known in England had one
result that I am pleased to think of. It brought me into personal
association with R. L. Stevenson, who had written and published in THE
CORNHILL MAGAZINE an essay on Thoreau, in whom he had for some
time taken an interest. He found in Th