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Stevenson (Annotated)

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Robert Louis Stevenson (13 November 1850 – 3 December 1894) was a literary celebrity in his lifetime and remains one of the most translated authors in the world (Currently ranked #26). He was a novelist, poet and a prolific travel writer in an age when moving across nations was arduous and fraught with peril. Stevenson lived his short life to the full. Of the cocaine-fueled writing binge that produced Strange Case of Jekyll and Hyde, his wife Fanny said: "That an invalid in my husband"s condition of health should have been able to perform the manual labor alone of putting 60,000 words on paper in six days, seems almost incredible."

No Robert Louis Stevenson collection would be complete without Treasure Island, another genre kick-starter which, partly thanks to Disney, remains alive in the public’s imagination; and Kidnapped, Stevenson’s famous “boy’s” novel. There is also The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses, a lesser known historical romance adventure set during England’s Wars of the Roses, and An Inland Voyage, a pioneering work of travel literature by Stevenson about a canoeing trip through France and Belgium in 1876.

This collection includes an image gallery with portraits of Stevenson, photographs from his last years in Samoa, copies of first edition book covers and reproductions of many original Victorian illustrations.

Stevenson Six Pack

An Inland Voyage

Treasure Island

The Body Snatcher

Strange Case of Jekyll & Hyde

Kidnapped

The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses

*Image Gallery.

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Chapter 1
Preface to the First EditionTo equip so small a book with a preface is, I am half afraid, to sin against proportion. But a preface is more than an author can resist, for it is the reward of his labours. When the foundation stone is laid, the architect appears with his plans, and struts for an hour before the public eye. So with the writer in his preface: he may have never a word to say, but he must show himself for a moment in the portico, hat in hand, and with an urbane demeanour. It is best, in such circumstances, to represent a delicate shade of manner between humility and superiority: as if the book had been written by some one else, and you had merely run over it and inserted what was good. But for my part I have not yet learned the trick to that perfection; I am not yet able to dissemble the warmth of my sentiments towards a reader; and if I meet him on the threshold, it is to invite him in with country cordiality. To say truth, I had no sooner finished reading this little book in proof, than I was seized upon by a distressing apprehension. It occurred to me that I might not only be the first to read these pages, but the last as well; that I might have pioneered this very smiling tract of country all in vain, and find not a soul to follow in my steps. The more I thought, the more I disliked the notion; until the distaste grew into a sort of panic terror, and I rushed into this Preface, which is no more than an advertisement for readers. What am I to say for my book? Caleb and Joshua brought back from Palestine a formidable bunch of grapes; alas! my book produces naught so nourishing; and for the matter of that, we live in an age when people prefer a definition to any quantity of fruit. I wonder, would a negative be found enticing? for, from the negative point of view, I flatter myself this volume has a certain stamp. Although it runs to considerably upwards of two hundred pages, it contains not a single reference to the imbecility of God’s universe, nor so much as a single hint that I could have made a better one myself.—I really do not know where my head can have been. I seem to have forgotten all that makes it glorious to be man.—’Tis an omission that renders the book philosophically unimportant; but I am in hopes the eccentricity may please in frivolous circles. To the friend who accompanied me I owe many thanks already, indeed I wish I owed him nothing else; but at this moment I feel towards him an almost exaggerated tenderness. He, at least, will become my reader:—if it were only to follow his own travels alongside of mine. –––––––– R. L. S.

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