The short stories of Robert Louis Stevenson

414 Pages·2010·18.13 MB·English

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UNIVERSITY OF STIRLING
NAME OF CANDIDATE: KENNETH GELDER
THESIS TITLE: THE SHORT STORIES OF ROBERT LOUIS
STEVENSON
SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF: DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
DATE: NOVEMBER 1984
TO HANNAH
CONTENTS
PAGE
Abstract i
Acknowledgements iii
Abbreviations iv
INTRODUCTION 1
CHAPTER ONE: NEW ARABIAN NIGHTS: INTRODUCTION 10
I. 'THE SUICIDE CLUB' AND 'THE RAJAH'S DIAMOND' 13
II. THE FRENCH STORIES: 'A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT,'
'THE SIRE DE MALETROIT'S DOOR' AND 'PROVIDENCE AND
THE GUITAR' 31
III. 'THE PAVILION ON THE LINKS' 46
CHAPTER TWO: MORE NEW ARABIAN NIGHTS: THE DYNAMITER 60
CHAPTER THREE: SOME UNCOLLECTED SHORT STORIES
I. 'WHEN THE DEVIL WAS WELL' 76
II. 'THE BODY-SNATCHER' 90
III. 'THE MISADVENTURES OF JOHN NICHOLSON' 102
CHAPTER FOUR: THE MERRY MEN AND OTHER TALES: INTRODUCTION 122
I. 'WILL 0' THE MILL' AND 'THE TREASURE OF
FRANCHARD' 125
II. THE SCOTTISH STORIES: 'THRAWN JANET' AND
'THE TALE OF TOD LAPRAIK' 148
III. THE SCOTTISH STORIES: 'THE MERRY MEN' 168
IV. 'MARKHEIM' 192
V. ' OLALLA' 213
CHAPTER FIVE: THE STRANGE CASE OF DR JEKYLL AND MR HYDE 231
CHAPTER SIX: ISLAND NIGHTS' ENTERTAINMENTS: INTRODUCTION 256
I. 'THE BOTTLE IMP' AND 'THE ISLE OF VOICES' 261
II. 'THE BEACH OF FALESA' 275
PAGE
CONCLUSION 292
APPENDICES: INTRODUCTION 295
I. 'THE PAVILION ON THE LINKS' 297
II. 'THE MERRY MEN' 310
III. 'MARKHEIM' 326
IV. THE STRANGE CASE OF DR JEKYLL AND MR HYDE 357
V. 'THE BEACH OF FALESA' 379
BIBLIOGRAPHY 401
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ABSTRACT
The thesis provides a scholarly introduction to most of Robert
Louis Stevenson's short stories: New Arabian Nights, More New Arabian
Nights: The Dynamiter, The Merry Men and Other Tales, The Strange Case
of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Island Nights' Entertainments, 'When the Devil
was Well,' 'The Body-Snatcher,' 'The Misadventures of John Nicholson'
and 'The Tale of Tod Lapraik' from the novel Catriona. The approach here
is contextual: the discussions of each story draw on Stevenson's essays
and other writings, and remark on some of the more significant literary
or historical sources of which Stevenson had made use. The earlier
versions (including manuscripts or manuscript fragments) of certain
stories are also remarked on, in order to provide a fuller understanding
of that story's development over a period of time. Five appendices are
included, tabulating in detail the differences between the earlier
versions and the final published versions of these stories.
These introductory remarks are also directed towards providing
a particular reading of the short stories. This reading begins by
drawing attention to the neglected 'new' Arabian Nights, French and
South Pacific stories, and refers to them as 'romantically comic.' It
then suggests that, with endings characterised by reconciliation and
resolution, these stories present an essentially 'restorative' or
'remedial' process: it is this process that allows these stories to be
defined as 'romantically comic.' The term 'remedial' has significant
implications: in these stories a character may literally be 'healed' or
'restored,' and the setting itself (for example, the forest of
Fontainebleau in 'The Treasure of Franchard') may possess 'healing'
properties. The thesis examines the implications of this comic 'remedial'
process, and shows how it operates in and controls the outcome of these
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stories.
By contrast, a number of these stories are not at all 'romantically
comic.' Stories such as 'The Body-Snatcher' or The Strange Case of Dr
Jekyll and Mr Hyde present a process that is by no means 'remedial' or
'restorative': instead, an opposite process of decline or 'deterioration'
is traced where, now, a character may literally lose his health. These
gloomier and more tragic stories examine the 'symptoms' of such a
'deteriorated' condition: premature ageing, the sleepless night, the
nightmare or the feverish dream, the dependance upon and enslavement to
drugs or 'powders,' and so on. The thesis thus classifies two essentially
opposite kinds of short story: the 'romantically comic,' with its
'restorative' ending and its 'remedial' process, perhaps literally
representing the recovery of a character's health; and the gloomier
'tales for winter nights' which, by contrast, present a process of
'deterioration' where, for various reasons, a character's health is lost
and is never finally recovered.
The thesis implies a connection between these two processes,
operating throughout the short stories, and Stevenson's own condition as
an invalid (with its connotations of 'deteriorating' health) and a
convalescent (with its opposite connotations of recovery). Indeed, for
Stevenson, the act of writing stories is itself significant in this
context.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My thanks especially to Dr Donald Low for his supervision and
encouragement. Thanks also to Mr Douglas Mack of the University of
Stirling Library.
Items 3023, 3560, 3726, 6576, 6934 and 6940 are presented with the
kind permission of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library: I am
grateful to Mr Stephen C. Jones and Ms Marjorie G. Wynne for their
assistance here. Items HM 2391 and HM 2405 are presented with the kind
permission of the Huntington Library: I am grateful to Mr Daniel H.
/
Woodward for his assistance. MS Eng. 269.2 is presented with the kind
permission of the Houghton Library: I am grateful to Mr Roger G. Dennis
for his assistance. Finally, the items from the Parrish Collection of
R.L. Stevenson are presented with the kind permission of the Princeton
University Library: I am grateful to Ms Jean F. Preston for her
assistance here.
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ABBREVIATIONS
The thesis uses the Tusitala Edition of The Works of Robert Louis
Stevenson, 35 vols (London, 1924): references will simply give the title
and volume number of the volume referred to. The last five volumes in
this edition contain The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson, edited by
Sir Sidney Colvin: these will be abbreviated to Letters, with the
appropriate volume number.
DeLancey Ferguson and Marshall Waingrow's R.L.S.: Stevenson's
Letters to Charles Baxter (Port Washington, New York, 1956) will be
abbreviated to Baxter.
1
INTRODUCTION
Stevenson published four collections of short stories, New Arabian
Nights, More New Arabian Nights: The Dynamiter, The Merry Men and Other
Tales and Island Nights' Entertainments. The thesis will introduce and
closely examine these collections, as well as three uncollected short
stories (that is, stories not collected in book form in Stevenson's
lifetime), 'When the Devil was Well,' 'The- Body-Snatcher' and 'The
Misadventures of John Nicholson,' the longer The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll
and Mr Hyde, and 'The Tale of Tod Lapraik' from the novel Catriona.
Stevenson's career as an author was firmly established with his
first novel, Treasure Island; yet the first fiction he had published in
book form, more than a year before, was a collection of short stories,
New Arabian Nights. As Stevenson had remarked in 'My First Book: Treasure
Island,' this novel
...was far, indeed, from being my first book, for I am
not a novelist alone. But I am well aware that my pay
master, the great pUblic, regards what else I have
written with indifference ....and when I am asked to talk
of my first book, no question in the world but what is
meant is my first novel. 1
It is likely that Stevenson's reputation rested, and still rests,
2
primarily on several of his novels, and perhaps as a consequence many
of his short stories have been neglected. Indeed, some short stories have
1. Treasure Island, ii, xxiii.
2. See, for example, Emma Letley's remarks on The Master of Ballantrae.
that 'this novel reclaimed Stevenson's reputation .... A novel was needed
to revive the acclaim he had received with Treasure Island... The Master
1
of Ballantrae, edited by Emma Letley (Oxford, 1983), p.vii. See also Pau:
Binding's remarks on Weir of Hermiston, that it 'provides perhaps the
only example of an unfinished, posthumously published novel ... surpassing
all its author's previous literary performances,' Weir of Hermiston and
Other Stories, edited by Paul Binding (Harmondsworth, England, lu79). p.7.
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been more neglected than others. Stevenson's French stories, for example
('The Sire de Maletroit's Door,' 'Providence and the Guitar' and 'The
Treasure of Franchard' in particular), have elicited no critical interest
and doubtless seem hard to reconcile with some of his gloomier Scottish
fiction: Douglas Gifford has recently dismissed them altogether as,
merely, 'indulgent pieces set in France. ,3 Jenni Calder has put this
kind of dismissal into context by noting that Stevenson's 'secure
position in the Scottish canon has meant a certain lack of concern for
areas where he moved outside Scottish territory. ,4 Although the thesis
will examine Stevenson's six Scottish short stories, it will also draw
particular attention to those stories set outside this 'Scottish
territory.' These include the French stories listed above, those
'Bohemian' stories collected in New Arabian Nights and More New Arabian
Nights: The Dynamiter, and the South Pacific stories in Island Nights'
Entertainments. Moreover, these French, 'Bohemian' and South Pacific
stories reflect a kind of writing by Stevenson which has itself been
neglected, and which is best expressed in terms of a claim Stevenson had
made in a letter to W.E. Henley in May 1884: 'My view of life is
essentially the comic; and the romantically comic.,5
The thesis explores this notion of the 'romantically comic' and
shows how it operates through the above short stories: they are shown to
be, in other words, 'romantic comedies.' In particular, they testify to
the deep influence on Stevenson of Shakespearian romantic comedy, with
(among other things) its characteristic celebratory ending and its
3. 'Stevenson and Scottish Fiction: The Importance of The Master of
Ballantrae,' Stevenson and Victorian Scotland, edited by Jenni Calder
(Edinburgh, 1981), p.64.
4. 'Introduction: Stevenson in Perspective,' ibid., p.2.
~. Letters, ii, 308.