Lantern-Bearers: And Other Essays

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) is best known as the author of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Treasure Island, and Kidnapped, but his essays comprise an oft-overlooked trove of gems, intriguing in their content and generous in their scope. This collection of nearly three dozen of Stevenson's best essays—the only anthology of its kind— spans his brief life and includes many of his most celebrated pieces and some others previously unpublished.

This anthology collects 33 of his finest pieces on diverse subjects.

Library Journal

It is good finally to have a selectionroughly a quarterof Stevenson's essays, otherwise available only in scattered reprint collections. Mostly miscellaneous magazine pieces, the essays range from humorous sketches to autobiographical reflections to moral commentary. Many convey a Romantic criticism of Victorian respectability. But their value lies mainly in their vivacity and style, which can be attributed to the storyteller's craft: they exhibit a descriptive immediacy and, in the studies of Burns, Whitman, and Pepys, a strong sense of character. The best are serious without pretention, holding a place of their own in the prose of the 1870s and 1880s. With a helpful introduction and chronology. Donald Ray, Manhattanville Coll. Lib., Purchase, N.Y.

The Victorian poet and novelist Robert Louis Stevenson once said, "Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant." The author of the magical A Child's Garden of Verses and the chilling The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Stevenson indeed planted powerful literary seeds -- that grew into undisputed classics.