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The short stories of Robert Louis Stevenson PDF

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 i 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 ii • 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. iii 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. iv 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. 2 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.

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The thesis provides a scholarly introduction to most of Robert. Louis Stevenson's short stories: New Arabian Nights, More New Arabian. Nights: The
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