Robert Louis Stevenson

Event date: Wednesday 8 October Time: 13:00-14:00 Location: Seminar room, 2 Hope Park Square, Edinburgh, EH8 9NW An IASH Work-in-Progress seminar, delivered by Dr Shari Sabeti (Sabbatical Fellow, 2025) ‘Ending badly from the beginning’: facing finitude with Robert Louis Stevenson. What does it mean to live - and to write - well, through experiences of illness and in the shadow of death? Is death the end, or the beginning of relationships? This presentation considers these questions through an exploration of the life, work, and legacy of the Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson. It focuses on his last years, as both exile and settler colonial, in Sāmoa, a Pacific island he had travelled to in search of health. Drawing on Barthes’ concepts of the punctum and biographeme, as well as writing on illness (Sontag, Frank), the chapter blends ethnographic fieldwork, literary and photographic analysis, elements of biography and personal reflection. It argues that Stevenson’s relationship with Sāmoa and Samoans continues through to the present day in oral histories, school songs, grave-site rituals, and community narratives that position him within specifically Sāmoan frameworks of care, kinship, and place.

Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie…

“Ending badly from the beginning”: facing finitude with Robert Louis Stevenson
8 Oct @edinburgh-uni.bsky.social & online – free

An @iashedinburgh.bsky.social Work-in-Progress seminar from Dr Shari Sabeti
www.iash.ed.ac.uk/event/dr-sha...

Ah yes, but who took Scott to Orkney where he learned about Gow? RLS’s grandfather, Robert Stevenson.

One obvious obstacle to physical authenticity is Silver’s leg: cut “close by the hip” in the text, all the actors to play him are bipedal; therefore, they all had to fold and secure their left legs in what must presumably be a very uncomfortable position, making the role physically challenging (Stevenson [1883] 2012, p. 85). Such an arrangement must also make moving like Stevenson’s Silver very difficult. Fleming accounts for this by using an action double for Beery, most clearly in his murder of Tom, allowing the audience to believe in his physical prowess (Fleming 1934, 55:33–56:27). Newton maneuvers impressively on the crutch but does little to convince the viewer of any physical threat. This fact allows for film adaptations to further soften the Silver character as we will discuss in the next two sections: where Stevenson’s Silver appears to use his disfigurement to disguise his physical abilities, making him dangerous, film adaptations often use it to blunt any real threat. Charlton Heston, for example, is a menacing presence in the 1990 Turner Pictures adaptation, but his age and awkwardness of movement are a clear contrast with Wyeth’s dynamic, nimble Silver. With the possible exception of Tim Curry—who is younger and more agile than his cinematic counterparts—in the playful 1996 film Muppet Treasure Island, the Silver of the screen must rely more on his wits, his charm, and his presence of character, than on any physical threat he poses, in order to manipulate his crew, Jim, or Jim’s friends.

ACTUAL SCIENCE proves that Tim Curry gives the pre-eminent screen portrayal of Long John Silver

From Braemar to Hollywood: The American Appropriation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Pirates
—Richard J. Hill & Laura Eidam, Humanities 2020, 9(1)
www.mdpi.com/2076-0787/9/...

From Illustration to Meme: The Pictorial Representa-
tion of Duality in Editions of Robert Louis Stevenson’s
Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
WOLFGANG G. MÜLLER scholar.google.fr/scholar_url?...

One More Time: Stevenson’s “Across the Plains” and
the Genre of Trans-American Travel
CAROLINE MCCRACKEN-FLESHER in Connotations www.connotations.de/wp-content/u...

Othello in the South Seas: Robert Louis Stevenson’s “The Beach of Falesá” as Shakespearean Rewriting
Lucio De Capitani
Published in Connotations Vol. 34 (2025) www.connotations.de/article/othe...

To the Commissioners of Northern Lights Robert Louis Stevenson I send to you, commissioners, A paper that may please ye, sirs (For troth they say it might be worse‍‍ An’ I believe’t) And on your business lay my curse‍‍ Before I leav’t. I thocht I’d serve wi’ you, sirs, yince, But I’ve thocht better of it since; The matter I will nowise mince,‍‍ But tell ye true: I’ll service wi’ some ither prince,‍‍ An’ no wi’ you. I’ve no been very deep, ye’ll think, Cam’ delicately to the brink An’ when the water gart me shrink‍‍ Straucht took the rue, An’ didna stoop my fill to drink—‍‍ I own it true. I kent on cape and isle, a light Burnt fair an’ clearly ilka night; But at the service I took fright,‍‍ As sune’s I saw, An’ being still a neophite‍‍ Gaed straucht awa’. Anither course I now begin, The weeg I’Il cairry for my Sin, The court my voice shall echo in,‍‍ An’—wha can tell?— Some ither day I may be yin‍‍ O’ you mysel’.

I send to you, commissioners,
A paper that may please ye, sirs
(For troth they say it might be worse‍‍
An’ I believe’t)…

—Robert Louis Stevenson, “To the Commissioners of Northern Lights”, which RLS sent along with his design for “a new form of intermittent light”
#InternationalLighthouseWeekend
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www.radiofrance.fr/francecultur...

Robert Cain in KIDNAPPED (1917), the earliest known feature-length adaptation of the Robert Louis Stevenson novel. I crowdfunded a DVD release with the film and all the original shorts that accompanied it (a fairy tale, a gladiator comedy, two actualities) back in 2018

Courting the Bourgeois: Stevenson, Baudelaire, and Writing as a Profession
Katherine Ashley
Connotations, Vol. 34, 153-169. www.connotations.de/article/kath...

My article on Stevenson and Scott, “'Scott’s Voyage in the Lighthouse Yacht' and Intertextual Transmission" has been published in Connotations www.connotations.de/article/lesl...

CFP_UnNatural_Stevenson_Venice_2026 Call for papers: (Un)natural Stevenson Wild transgressions across literature, ecology, science and gender Ca’ Foscari University of Venice 11-12 May 2026 Aula Baratto Organizers: Lucio De Capitani...

CFP: (Un)natural Stevenson
Wild transgressions across literature, ecology, science and gender, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Aula Baratto, 11-12 May 2026 Organizers: Lucio De Capitani & Alessandro Cabiati docs.google.com/document/d/1...

But the semicolon is the triggering device, revealing Stevenson's habit of stringing together details in a loosely punctuated sequence. Through the lucidity of his prose Stevenson discloses a fundamental irony: that things in the world are not clear and lucid; that the more one aspires to express their coherence, and is successful at it, the more one recognizes the futility of the pursuit; that language itself, and the way in which we organize and build our sentences, provide an illusion at odds with reality. The semicolon, with its pause-virtually a full stop, yet not the end of a sentence-fits Stevenson's scheme beautifully: it is neither a terminal mark, like a period, nor an intermediate device, like a comma. This ambiguity is apparent even in simple compound sentences, where Stevenson almost invariably uses the semicolon. He does not separate the clauses with periods, nor does he use commas. It is as if he were not sure whether to make his statements independent or to connect them. There is an uncertainty built into his style that is encouraged or assisted by his use of the semicolon.

“Stevenson discloses a fundamental irony: that things in the world are not clear & lucid… There is an uncertainty built into his style that is encouraged or assisted by his use of the semicolon”

—Barry Menikoff’s Robert Louis Stevenson & “The Beach of Falesá”
www.barrymenikoff.net/robert_louis...

I got mugged!

My new variant cover for THRAWN JANET…now a mug!
Cheerio!

shop.whaleden.com/products/thr...

Hot Off The Presses ....I was just sent this from my publisher - I'll be signing the 1st complete publication of THRAWN JANET and with a new 3D cover by me.... at #Prague @comiccon this weekend #horrorfans! Published by Whaleden.com

The Absent Heart by @alibacon.bsky.social In 1870, Frances Sitwell, trapped in an abusive marriage, is grateful for the chaste affection offered by Sidney Colvin. They make a perfect couple until the young Robert Louis Stevenson bursts into their lives www.linen-press.com/shop/the-abs...

Michael Pedersen on Robert Louis Stevenson An evening exploring the legacy of one of Scotland’s most renowned authors in words, film, and conversation.

1 May @natlibscot.bsky.social – £0–£10

Novelist & Edinburgh Makar @michaelpedersen.bsky.social, bestselling crime writer @valmcdermid.bsky.social, filmmaker David Carrillo, & National Library curator Colin McIlroy explore the legacy of Robert Louis Stevenson
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/michael-pe...

A newspaper clipping from 1891, showing a title and the opening few lines of Robert Louis Stevenson’s short story "The Bottle Imp"

Robert Louis Stevenson’s short story “The Bottle Imp” was first published (in English) on this day, 8 Feb, 1891, in the New York Herald. It was originally published in Samoan translation as “O le Fagu Aitu” in the missionary magazine O le sulu Samoa (The Samoan Torch)

A 👿 🧵 …
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Silver by Jonathan Smith - BBC Sounds A one-legged poet inspires RL Stevenson for his classic novel 'Treasure Island'.

Stevenson & Henley www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

"Tusitala: Pacific perspectives on Robert Louis Stevenson"
an exhibition at the National Library of Scotland (8 November 2024 to 10 May 2025) www.nls.uk/whats-on/tus...

The New Edinburgh Edition of the Collected Works of Robert Louis Stevenson
Series Editor(s): Stephen D. Arata, Richard Dury, Penny Fielding, Anthony A. Mandal edinburghuniversitypress.com/series-the-n...