ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON AND THE APPEARANCE OF MODERNISM Also by Alan Sandison GEORGE ORWELL: AFTER 1984 (revised edition of) THE LAST MAN IN EUROPE THE WHEEL OF EMPIRE JULIUS CAESAR AND FRIENDS: THE IDEA OF ROME IN SHAKESPEARE'S JULIUS CAESAR Robert Louis Stevenson and the Appearance of Modernism A Future Feeling Alan Sandison m First published in Great Britain 19% by MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 0-333-62067-4 First published in the United States of America 1996 by ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC., Scholarly and Reference Division, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 ISBN 0-312-15968-4 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Sandison, Alan. Robert Louis Stevenson and the appearance of modernism / Alan Sandison. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-312-15968-4 (cloth) 1. Stevenson, Robert Louis, 1850-1894—Criticism and interpretation. 2. Modernism (Literature)—Scotland. I. Title. PR5496.S185 1996 828'.809—dc20 95-50589 CIP ©Alan Sandison 1996 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London WIP9HE. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. 10 9 8 7 6 54 3 21 05 04 03 02 01 00 99 98 97 96 Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire To Helen M. Henderson, the best of teachers, and in memoriam J. A. H., the best of students Contents Acknowledgements viii Introduction: 'A Future Feeling' 1 1 A Crisis of Paternity 18 2 Treasure Island: The Parrot's Tale 48 3 Arabesque 82 4 Prince Otto: To Write and Obliterate 145 5 Kidnapped and Catriona: The Missing Storey 179 6 jekyll and Hyde: The Story of the Door 215 7 Tvfo Other Father': Title Deeds in The Master of Ballantrae 270 8 The Ebb-Tide: A Modernist in the South Seas 317 9 Weir of Hermiston: The Horizon of Silence 369 Select Bibliography 415 Index 421 vu Acknowledgements For their valuable assistance in reading drafts and their constructive criticism, I am indebted to Alison Hoddinott, Elaine and Kenneth Moon, David Evans and Robert Dingley. The latter, in particular, has sacrificed a great deal of time and given freely of his own large store of knowledge of Victorian life and letters in the furtherance of this study. I should also like to record the help I received by being given access to the Beinecke Library and from discussions with John Scally of the National Library of Scotland. vm To go back to where Henry James, and Browning, and Swinbume and Meredith had come. ... The others all stayed where they were, it was where they had come but Henry James knew he was on his way And so although they did in a way the same thing, his had a future feeling and theirs an ending. Gertrude Stein .. .in the early seventies there came a kind of awakening. ... Gertrude Jekyll IX