Robert Louis Stevenson, página 7 de 78

El tema de la lucha del hombre entre el bien y el mal no es nuevo en la literatura, pues siempre se han contado relatos sobre la doble naturaleza de las personas; lo que sí es nuevo en EL EXTRAÑO CASO DEL DR. JEKYLL Y MR. HYDE, y de ahi su consideracion de clasico, es el tratamiento argumental y el estilo que le imprime su autor. Stevenson se asegura de que lo fantastico se funda con lo realista o de que la culpa se amalgame con la busqueda; consigue asomarse a la miseria y a la grandeza humanas y nos muestra la doble naturaleza del ser humano que vive en nuestro interior. Su obra contiene todos los ingredientes necesarios para ser acogida favorablemente en aquella epoca de finales del siglo XIX.

This edition is one the most complete Stevensonia collections. It contains a wealth of his essays, memories and records. The essays brought together under this title are chiefly Stevensons reflections, ten years afterwards, on the experiences and friendships of his youth. They represent a proportion of his contributions of this kind to reviews and magazines, from 1882 to 1887. Some of the essays are : The Foreigner at Home, Old Mortality, Pastoral, The Manse, Thomas Stevenson, Talk and Talkers, The Character of Dogs and A Penny Plain.

Feia prop de deu anys que la meva salut havia començat a declinar i, poc abans d'emprendre el viatge, em semblava que havia arribat a l'últim acte de la meva vida i que no em quedava res més que esperar la infermera i la funerària. Em van suggerir que anés als mars del Sud, i no em va semblar malament la idea de viatjar com un fantasma, arrossegat com un paquet, per escenaris que m'havien atret quan gaudia de salut i de joventut. Vaig llogar doncs la goleta del doctor Merrit, el Casco, de setanta quatre tones, i vaig salpar de San Francisco a la darreria de juny del 1888 rumb a les illes orientals i, a la primeria de l'any següent, ja era a Honolulu.

This edition contains the most important and best known short stories, that were not included in other prominent collections. Included are:The Body-SnatcherThrawn JanetWill O the MillThe Treasure of FranchardMarkheimThe Misadventures of John NicholsonThe Story Of A LieHeathercatThe Great North RoadThe Young ChevalierFables

This edition includes the most important travel writings by the famous author:The Silverado SquattersAcross The PlainsThe Amateur EmigrantCockermouth And Keswick - A FragmentAn Autumn EffectA Winters Walk In Carrick And Galloway - A FragmentA Mountain Town In France [175] - A FragmentRandom Memories: Rosa Quo LocorumThe Ideal HouseDavos In WinterHealth And MountainsAlpine DiversionsThe Stimulation Of The AlpsRoadsOn The Enjoyment Of Unpleasant PlacesFootnotesAn Inland VoyageTravels With A Donkey In The Cevennes

In his romance "The Master of Ballantrae" Stevenson has touched high-water mark. One is tempted to go beyond this and say that no modern work of fiction in the English language rises higher in the scale of literary merit than this. It is a story of human passion, of human weakness, of human love and hate. The scene of the tale, for the most part, is laid in and around the House of Durrisdeer, on the Solway shore. Four persons make up the dramatis persona, at the beginning of the story, and although others come into the drama as it wears on to its tragical close, it may be said that no greater number than this is called into the plot of the piece. An old lord overfond of his rascally elder son; that son, devilish in his selfishness and satanic in his powers of fascination; a young woman blindly in love with him; and a younger son, who is early taunted with being the Supplanter, and who has the only virtue in the family; these are the materials from which Mr. Stevenson has evolved one of the most admirable pieces of literary work that has been given to the world of readers in many a day.

This tale of adventure, for the most part in a strain of romantic comedy, belongs to the last two years of Stevensons life. It tells of the adventures of a French Napoleonic soldier who got captured

Stevensons second longer work of fiction is the greatest imaginable jump from the buccaneering story of Treasure Island with which he first came before a large public. Prince Otto is difficult to classify; it is not, as R. L. S. wrote, a romance, nor yet a comedy, nor yet a romantic comedy, but a kind of preparation of some of the elements of all these in a glass jar. It is, more than anything else, a piece of Stevensons paradoxical philosophy wrought into a story which, for one thing, has a very slender interest and, for another, is all the while very near to being overwhelmed by the rich beauty of its writing. Stevensons theme seems to be: Let us have done with this artificial life of courts which chokes a mans healthy tastes, and is a breeding ground for vanity and scandal. Such is the interpretation which the story bears from his declaration to Henley that the romance lies precisely in the freeing of two spirits from these court intrigues. The delicacy with which this motive is woven into the picture of the affairs of Otto and his princess may justify the opinion, often expressed, that the book is the touchstone for the true Stevensonian.

Of the nine essays collected in this volume, seven had appeared in the Cornhill Magazine. The whole set range in date from 1874 to 1881, and thus belong to the period of Stevensons life during which the papers in Virginibus Puerisque were written. The familiar studies are Victor Hugos Romances, Some Aspects Of Robert Burns, Walt Whitman, Henry David Thoreau, Yoshido Torajiro, François Villon, Charles of Orleans, Samuel Pepys, and John Knox and Women. In arranging them for republication R. L. S. prefaced them by some notes of self-criticism, in which he is at much pains to show where, as he thought, he had accorded less than full justice to his subjects.

In the South Seas, as here available to the reader, is the result of a journey on the Casco together with Stevensons mother, wife and stepson. The earlier parts, those on the Marquesas and Paumotos, or low or atoll islands, most definitely mark Stevensons original intention ; those on the Gilberts, with their picture of the king Tembinok, are more in the personal strain of R. L. S., and are thus accepted as the most successful part of these writings. But the things most to be regretted about them is their omissions ; nothing of Stevensons long stay at Tautira as the guest of the chief Ori a Ori, nor of his visit to the leper settlement of Molokai. His letters to friends in England, and the extracts from his journal in the Life do something to fill in these gaps, but not in proportion to the interest of the subjects.

This edition comprises the four dramatical plays that the well known author wrote in his lifetime:Deacon BrodieBeau AustinAdmiral GuineaMacaire

A great part of the last four years of Stevensons life was occupied, very unfortunately for his literary work, in an active share in Samoan politics. For some years before he began to travel in the Pacific, the islands in which he at last made his home, had been in a disturbed condition from causes partly arising from native differences, and partly from foreign interference. Before ever he had reached Samoa he had espoused the cause of the native race of Honolulu, and in February 1889 had written to The Times crying against German aggressiveness in Samoa, displayed not only in relations with the natives, but against American and English. Inasmuch as A Footnote to History records Samoan affairs from 1883 to 1891, it should be noted that Stevenson first set foot in Samoa at Christmas 1889, and after a brief stay was absent nearly the whole of the following year. Thus it was only during one of the eight years that he was in direct touch with what was going on. The history of the previous period he gathered from white residents such as H. J. Moors {q.v.) and others who more or less shared his political views, or at any rate from motives of interest were opposed to the German element.

Fleeming Jenkin, noted for his work in engineering and applied electricity, was one of R. L. S.s closest friends in his early days. When Jenkin, then thirty-five, became Professor of Engineering in Edinburgh University, Stevenson, much against all his inclinations, was professedly studying to qualify himself for his fathers calling. The Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin, which Stevenson wrote on his friends death in 1885, was undertaken at Bournemouth with the assistance of Mrs. Jenkin. It is the only biographical work which Stevenson completed, and rather curiously is said to be the book which his wife thought the most successful of his writings.

A story which shows Stevensons powder of vividly descriptive writing at perhaps its highest level, but one which, as a story, has been variously criticized. It was written in the Highlands in 1881, the year after his marriage, as one of a series of tales of horror ( crawlers, as he called them), planned in collaboration with his wife. Aros of the story is the tidal islet of Earraid, famous under its own name in Kidnapped ; the Ross of Grisapol is the Ross of Mull ; and Ben Ryan, Ben More. The name of the Merry Men is plainly taken from the Merry Men of Mey, as sailors call certain rocks in the dangerous channels of the Pentland Firth. In writing what he called a fantastic sonata of the sea and wrecks Stevenson seems to have adopted a more complex and subtle scheme than was commonly his plan of construction, which perhaps is the reason why the tale is pronounced good or bad by the critics according to their discernment of its motive.

La vida del jove Jim Hawkins va canviar el dia que un vell mariner de poques paraules i gran aficionat al rom, que es feia dir capita, va decidir instal·lar-se a la posada dels seus pares. Tot i que laventura de debo comença realment quan Jim descobreix el mapa del tresor i coneix John Silver... La magnifica traduccio de Joan Arus i les il·lustracions de Yorick fan que la lectura daquesta edicio esdevingui un veritable plaer per a lectors de totes les edats.