The Poems of Robert Louis Stevenson

by Robert Louis Stevenson, William Peterfield Trent (Creator)

A child's garden of verses --
The child alone --
Garden days --
Envoys --
The song of Rahero --
The feast of famine --
Ticonderoga --
Heather Ale --
Christmas at sea --
Underwoods.

242 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1893

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

[Chien-Wei Kung · Rating 2 out of 5]

I never knew Stevenson was a poet, and just picked this book up on a whim from the library. I don't have much exposure to poetry, but I thought this was just okay. There were definitely some great poems in here, but nothing that blew me away. Now that I've started here, I think I will read some others, like Pablo Neruda, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Walt Whitman.

[Thomas Jr. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poetry was not Stevenson's forte, in terms of his "ambitious" poetic works, but there are marked exceptions. "A Child's Garden of Verses," comprised of short, largely-nostalgic lyrics, could almost be said to have invented the genre in which A.A.Milne and and Shel Silverstein are subsequent masters. It's fascinating to read the poems against "Jekyll and Hyde," looking at the way the pathology of Hyde can be seen as the result of Jekyll's inability to give overt expression to the playful urges that are depicted so charmingly in these pieces. There are dark poems, too, evocative of some of the dreads attendant to Stevenson's strict, Calvinist upbringing, but the fact that this collection seems no longer to be a mainstay in children's bedtime reading is sad. Other gems among his poetic efforts are the pieces that give voice to the romanticism and even eroticism that rarely found their way into his fiction. For those interested in Stevenson's verse, by the way, many of his most amusing efforts were off-hand little pieces scattered here and there in his letters.

[Tracey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed these poems and the short biography of Stevenson at the beginning. I think it was is as good asA Child's Garden of Verses but still good poems to read.

[Book2Dragon · Rating 5 out of 5]

selected by Helen Platz

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

My first book of Stevenson poetry. Picked it up at a yard sale. I find it interesting. Some is hard to understand being written with some Scott punctuation, but other parts are okay