Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson: Selected and Edited With an Introduction and Notes by William Lyon PhelpsStevenson, Robert Louis
General
Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson: Selected and Edited With an Introduction and Notes by William Lyon Phelps
Stevenson, Robert Louis
Essays
[Note 3: _Hazlitt, to Lamb, to Wordsworth, to Sir Thomas Browne, to
Defoe, to Hawthorne, to Montaigne, to Beaudelaire, and to Obermann_.
For Hazlitt, see Note 19 of Chapter II above. Charles Lamb
(1775-1834), author of the delightful _Essays of Elia_ (1822-24), the
_tone_ of which book is often echoed in Stevenson's essays.... Sir
Thomas Browne (1605-1682), regarded by many as the greatest prose
writer of the seventeenth century; his best books are _Religio Medici_
(the religion of a physician), 1642, and _Urn Burial_ (1658). The
300th anniversary of his birth was widely celebrated on 19 October
1905.... Daniel Defoe (1661-1731), an enormously prolific writer; his
first important novel, _Robinson Crusoe_ (followed by many others) was
written when he was 58 years old.... Nathaniel Hawthorne, the greatest
literary artist that America has ever produced was born 4 July 1804,
and died in 1864. His best novel (the finest in American Literature)
was _The Scarlet Letter_ (1850).... Montaigne. Stevenson was heavily
indebted to this wonderful genius. See Note 4 of Chapter VI above. ...
Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) wrote the brilliant and decadent
_Fleurs du Mai_ (1857-61). He translated Poe into French, and was
partly responsible for Poe's immense vogue in France. Had Baudelaire's
French followers possessed the power of their master, we should be
able to forgive them for writing.... Obermann. _Òbermann_ is the title
of a story by the French writer Etienne Pivert de Sénancour
(1770-1846). The book, which appeared in 1804, is full of vague
melancholy, in the Werther fashion, and is more of a psychological
study than a novel. In recent years, _Amiel's Journal_ and
Sienkiewicz's _Without Dogma_ belong to the same school of literature.
Matthew Arnold was fond of quoting from Sénancour's _Obermann_.]
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