ALL Stevensonians owe a debt of gratitude to the Bibliophile Society of
Boston for having discovered the following poems and given them light in
a privately printed edition, thus making them known, in fact, to the
world at large. Otherwise they would have remained scattered and hidden
indefinitely in the hands of various collectors. They will be found
extraordinarily interesting in their self-revelation, and some, indeed,
are so intimate and personal that one understands why Stevenson withheld
them from all eyes save his own. The love-poems in particular, though
they are of very unequal merit, possess in common a really affecting
sincerity. That Stevenson should have preserved these poems through all
the vicissitudes of his wandering life shows how dearly he must have
valued them; and shows, too, I think, beyond any contradiction, that he
meant they should be ultimately published.