Essays Of Travel

by Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson (13 November 1850 – 3 December 1894) was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer. His most famous works are Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. A literary celebrity during his lifetime, Stevenson now ranks among the 26 most translated authors in the world. His works have been admired by many other writers, including Jorge Luis Borges, Ernest Hemingway, Rudyard Kipling, Marcel Schwob, Vladimir Nabokov, J. M. Barrie, and G. K. Chesterton, who said of him that he "seemed to pick the right word up on the point of his pen, like a man playing spillikins." -wikipedia

Genres: Travel, Essays, Nonfiction, Biography

248 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1905

About the author

Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, and travel writer, and a leading representative of English literature. He was greatly admired by many authors, including Jorge Luis Borges, Ernest Hemingway, Rudyard Kipling and Vladimir Nabokov.

Most modernist writers dismissed him, however, because he was popular and did not write within their narrow definition of literature. It is only recently that critics have begun to look beyond Stevenson's popularity and allow him a place in the Western canon.

Reviews

[Charles Sheard · Rating 5 out of 5]

As always, I find both the writing of Stevenson, as well as the personality of his which comes through these essays, to be very soothing and satisfying. Like travel itself, this collection doesn't smack you with drama, but immerses you in something that is wonderful if you take the time to look around you. While I had already read a few of these particular essays in other collections, revisiting them was simply like trodding a favored pathway again to a well-known vista that nevertheless still gives pleasure, and sometimes new details.

I continue to be convinced that Stevenson is an author with whom I would have greatly enjoyed spending time, especially on the road.

[jocelyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have said good-bye to people for greater distances and times, and, please God, I mean to see them yet again.

RLS is just one of the most magical writers I've ever had the pleasure of reading. His best known works are all fiction, but here, in his Essays of Travel lies the key to his skill: he understands people.

This collection is what it says it is. Stevenson traveled pretty extensively, though if I remember correctly, most of this book is taken up by France, England, and the United States, and on his journeys he acted as a witness to those around him. His physical descriptions of people are beautiful, but more than that, he paints the core of their being with such vivid prose. This was something I read very slowly, picking up only when I was ready to be lulled by his words, and I definitely don't suggest trying to power through it as quickly as possible. In its essence it is a study of people and humanity and it's stuck with me years after I put it down.