Tales of the South Seas (Canongate Classics) - Softcover

Stevenson, R. L.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0862416434 ISBN 13: 9780862416430

Publisher: Canongate UK, 2001

Synopsis

This collection includes Island Landfalls, The Ebb-Tide, and The Wrecker. Driven to the South Seas by ill health, Stevenson could not close his eyes to the impact of colonialism, the "stirabout of epochs and races, barbarisms and civilisations, virtues and crimes." Setting his imaginative writings within the social and political contexts of his letters and essays from the South Seas, reveals the deepening and broadening of Stevenson's genius and his growing awareness of and anger at white exploitation. It was a society in which his love of adventure, his awareness of the extremes of human nature, and his fascination with good and evil, could find full release. Tales of the South Seas gathers together all of Stevenson's South Sea fiction and a selection of prose and letters provides not only a vivid portrait of a colorful and exotic world, but also a full and rounded picture of a superb writer at the height of his powers. Edited and introduced by Jenni Calder.

About this title

About the Author:

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) was born and educated in Edinburgh. He was a sickly child, and most of his adult years were to be spent traveling in search of a climate which would do least damage to his lungs. He began his writing career with essays, short stories, and travel writing, most notably Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes (1879). He went to California to marry in 1880. The journey nearly killed him, but he wrote of his experiences in Across the Plains (1892), The Amateur Emigrant (1895), and The Silverado Squatters (1883). He is, perhaps, best remembered for his first novel Treasure Island (1883), and his early reputation was made with this and other examples of adventure fiction, not least Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde which appeared as a paperback thriller in 1886.

About this edition

• Publisher: Canongate UK
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0862416434
• ISBN 13: 9780862416430
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 264