Publisher's Synopsis
A collection of essays about writing: "On some technical elements of style in literature," "The morality of the profession of letters," "Books which have influenced me," "A note on realism," "My first book: 'Treasure Island'," "The genesis of 'the master of Ballantrae'" & "Preface to 'the master of Ballantrae'." Robert Louis (Balfour) Stevenson (November 13, 1850-December 3, 1894), was a Scottish novelist, poet, and travel writer, and a leading representative of Neo-romanticism in English literature. He was the man who "seemed to pick the right word up on the point of his pen, like a man playing spillikins," as G. K. Chesterton put it. He was also greatly admired by many authors, including Jorge Luis Borges, Ernest Hemingway, Rudyard Kipling and Vladimir Nabokov. Most modernist writers dismissed him, however, because he was popular and did not write within their narrow definition of literature. It is only recently that critics have begun to look beyond Stevenson's popularity and allow him a place in the canon.
