In this fascinating book, Reid examines Robert Louis Stevenson's writings in the context of late-Victorian evolutionist thought, arguing that an interest in 'primitive' culture is at the heart of his work. She investigates a wide range of Stevenson's writing, including Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Treasure Island, offering a new way of understanding the relationship between his Scottish and South Seas work. Reid's close attention to Stevenson's engagement with anthropological and psychological debate also illuminates the intersections between literature and science at the fin de siecle, and includes previously unpublished material from the Stevenson archive at Yale. Reid's interpretation offers a new way of understanding the relationship between his Scottish and South Seas work. Her analysis of Stevenson's engagement with anthropological and psychological debate also illuminates the dynamic intersections between literature and science at the fin de si??cle.
Author(s): Julia Reid
Year: 2006
Language: English
Pages: 256
Cover......Page 1
Contents......Page 8
List of Figures......Page 10
Acknowledgements......Page 12
Textual Note......Page 14
Introduction: Stevenson, Evolution, and the ‘Primitive’......Page 16
Part I: ‘[O]ur civilised nerves still tingle with … rude terrors and pleasures’: Romance and Evolutionary Psychology......Page 28
1 Stevenson and the Art of Fiction......Page 30
2 Romance Fiction: ‘stories round the savage camp-fire’......Page 46
Part II: ‘Downward, downward lies your way’: Degeneration and Psychology......Page 70
3 ‘There was less me and more not-me’: Stevenson and Nervous Morbidity......Page 74
4 ‘Gothic gnomes’: Degenerate Fictions......Page 92
Part III: Stevenson as Anthropologist: Culture, Folklore, and Language......Page 122
5 ‘The Foreigner at Home’: Stevenson and Scotland......Page 126
6 ‘[T]he clans disarmed, the chiefs deposed’: Stevenson in the South Seas......Page 153
Conclusion......Page 189
Notes......Page 193
Works Cited......Page 231
C......Page 249
F......Page 250
K......Page 251
O......Page 252
S......Page 253
T......Page 254
Z......Page 256
