The Lantern-Bearers and Other Essays

by Robert Louis Stevenson, Jeremy Treglown

Discusses umbrellas, John Knox, nature, idleness, love, Walt Whitman, Robert Burns, Samuel Pepys, dogs, art, and engineering

Genres: Essays

289 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1988

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

[Bill Kerwin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stevenson is a fine essayist, an excellent stylist who finds a middle way between the aggressive bumptiousness of Macaulay and the effete languor of Wilde. He believes in manliness, like any good Victorian, but his concept of manliness is roomy enough to include loafing, adventure and romance.

By choosing his subjects carefully, he manages to be both objective and personal. He reveals much about his own character while writing about such disparate personalities as John Knox, Walt Whitman, Robert Burns and Samuel Pepys, and in his piece on Davos--one of my favorites--shows us poignantly how confining an Alpine sanatorium--however beautiful the setting--must have been for an unwilling invalid like himself. In fact, all the travel pieces--whether they be about The Latin Quarter of Paris, Old California or Edinburgh--are excellent.

Even more interesting for me, however, are the essays in which he champions his own literary aesthetic, defending the tale of romantic adventure against the charge that it is somehow not as authentic or serious as realistic literature. Of these, the title essay is perhaps the finest.

The collection ends with two essays every lover of literature should read: 1) "My First Book," about the genesis of "Treasure Island, and 2) "Father Damien: an Open Letter to the Reverend Dr. Hyde," perhaps the most disciplined and noble expression of moral outrage in the language.

[Sherry (sethurner) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I probably should rate this collection of essays higher, but the fact is that some were fascinating to me and others I could not finish. The ones that caught my interest most were the ones that spoke to Stevenson's thoughts and analysis of his own writing. I was less interested in his critiques of other such as Walt Whitman, Robert Burns, John Knox or Samuel Pepys. Some of my favorite essays included Crabbed Age and Youth, On Falling in Love, The Lantern Bearers, A Gossip on Romance, and My First Book, Treasure Island.

[Anthony · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this a dozen years ago, but all I can remember of it is that it bored me to tears. I have to give it another go, just to see if the problem was mine or Bob's.