This article first appeared in the _British Weekly_ for 13 May 1887,
forming Stevenson's contribution to a symposium on this subject by
some of the celebrated writers of the day, including Gladstone,
Ruskin, Hamerton; and others as widely different as Archdeacon Farrar
and Rider Haggard. In the same year (1887) the papers were all
collected and published by the _Weekly_ in a volume, with the title
_Books Which Have Influenced Me_. This essay was later included in the
complete editions of Stevenson's _Works_ (Edinburgh ed., Vol. XI,
Thistle ed., Vol. XXII).
[Note 1: First published in the _British Weekly_, May 13, 1887.]
[Note 2: Of the _British Weekly_.]
[Note 3: _The most influential books ... are works of fiction_. This
statement is undoubtedly true, if we use the word "fiction" in the
sense understood here by Stevenson. It is curious, however, to note
the rise in dignity of "works of fiction," and of "novels"; people
used to read them with apologies, and did not like to be caught at it.
The cheerful audacity of Stevenson's declaration would have seemed
like blasphemy fifty years earlier.]
[Note 4: _Mrs. Scott Siddons_. Not for a moment to be confounded with
the great actress Sarah Siddons, who died in 1831. Mrs. Scott Siddons,
in spite of Stevenson's enthusiasm, was not an actress of remarkable
power.]
[Note 5: _Kent's brief speech_. Toward the end of _King Lear_.]
"Vex not his ghost: O, let him pass! he hates him
That would upon the rack of this tough world
Stretch him out longer."]
[Note 6: _D'Artagnan ... Vicomte de Bragelonne_. See Stevenson's
essay, _A Gossip on a Novel of Dumas's_ (1887), in _Memories and
Portraits_. See also Note 3 of Chapter II above and Note 43 of Chapter
IV above. _Vicomte de Bragelonne_ is the title of the sequel to
_Twenty Years After_, which is the sequel to the _Musketeers_. Dumas
wrote 257 volumes of romance, plays, travels etc.]
[Note 7: _Pilgrim's Progress_. See Note 13 of Chapter V above.]
[Note 8: _Essais of Montaigne_. See Note 6 of Chapter VI above. The
best translation in English of the _Essais_ is that by the
Elizabethan, John Florio (1550-1625), a contemporary of Montaigne. His
translation appeared in 1603, and may now be obtained complete in the
handy "Temple" classics. There is a copy of Florio's _Montaigne_ with
Ben Jonson's autograph, and also one that has what many believe to be
a genuine autograph of Shakspere.]
[Note 9: "_Linen decencies_." "The ghost of a linen decency yet haunts
us."--Milton, _Areopagitica_.]
[Note 10: _Whitman's Leaves of Grass_. See Stevenson's admirable essay
on _Walt Whitman_ (1878), also Note 12 of Chapter III above.]
[Note 11: _Have the gift of reading_. "Books are written to be read by
those who can understand them. Their possible effect on those who
cannot, is a matter of medical rather than of literary interest."
--Prof. W. Raleigh, _The English Novel_, remarks on _Tom Jones_,
Chap. VI.]
[Note 12: _Herbert_. See Note 18 of Chapter IV above.]
[Note 13: _Caput mortuum_. Dry kernel. Literary, "dead head."]
[Note 14: _Goethe's Life, by Lewes_. The standard Life of Goethe (in
English) is still that by George Henry Lewes (1817-1878), the husband
of George Eliot. His _Life of Goethe_ appeared in 1855; he later made
a simpler, abridged edition, called _The Story of Goethe's Life_.
Goethe, the greatest literary genius since Shakspere, and now
generally ranked among the four supreme writers of the world, Homer,
Dante, Shakspere, Goethe, was born in 1749, and died in 1832.
Stevenson, like most British critics, is rather severe on Goethe's
character. The student should read Eckermann's _Conversations with
Goethe_, a book full of wisdom and perennial delight. For _Werther_,
see Note 18 of Chapter VI above. The friendship between Goethe and
Schiller (1759-1805), "his honest and serviceable friendship," as
Stevenson puts it, is among the most beautiful things to contemplate
in literary history. Before the theatre in Weimar, Germany, where the
two men lived, stands a remarkable statue of the pair: and their
coffins lie side by side in a crypt in the same town.]
[Note 15: _Martial_. Poet, wit and epigrammatist, born in Spain 43 A.
D., died 104. He lived in Rome from 66 to 100, enjoying a high
reputation as a writer.]
[Note 16: _Meditations of Marcus Aurelius_. Marcus Aurelius Antoninus,
often called "the noblest of Pagans" was born 121 A. D., and died 180.
His _Meditations_ have been translated into the chief modern
languages, and though their author was hostile to Christianity, the
ethics of the book are much the same as those of the New Testament.]
[Note 17: _Wordsworth ... Mill_. William Wordsworth (1770-1850),
poet-laureate (1843-1850), is by many regarded as the third poet in
English literature, after Shakspere and Milton, whose places are
unassailable. Other candidates for the third place are Chaucer and
Spenser. "The silence that is in the lonely hills" is loosely quoted
from Wordsworth's _Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle, Upon the
Restoration of Lord Clifford_, published in 1807. The passage reads:
"The silence that is in the starry sky,
The sleep that is among the lonely hills."
... In the _Autobiography_ (1873) of John Stuart Mill (1806-1873),
there is a remarkable passage where he testifies to the influence
exerted upon him by Wordsworth.]
[Note 18: _A Nathan for the modern David_. The famous accusation of
the prophet to the king, "Thou art the man." See II _Sam_. 12.]
[Note 19: _The Egoist_. See Note 47 of Chapter IV above. Stevenson
never tired of singing the praises of this novel.]
[Note 20: _Thoreau ... Hazlitt ... Penn ... Mitford's Tales.._. Henry
David Thoreau (1817-1862), the American naturalist and writer, whose
works impressed Stevenson deeply. See the latter's excellent essay on
Thoreau (1880), in _Familiar Studies of Men and Books_.... Hazlitt,
See Note 19 of Chapter II above. His paper, _On the Spirit of
Obligations_, appeared in _The Plain Speaker_, 2 Vols., 1826. _Penn,
whose little book of aphorisms_. This refers to William Penn's famous
book, _Some Fruits of Solitude: in Reflections and Maxims relating to
the Conduct of Human Life_ (1693). Edmund Gosse says, in his
Introduction to a charming little edition of this book in 1900,
"Stevenson had intended to make this book and its author the subject
of one of his critical essays. In February 1880 he was preparing to
begin it... He never found the opportunity... But it has left an
indelible stamp on the tenor of his moral writings. The philosophy of
B. L. S. ... is tinctured through and through with the honest, shrewd,
and genial maxims of Penn." Stevenson himself, in his _Letters_ (Vol.
I, pp. 232, 233), spoke of this little book in the highest terms of
praise.]
[Note 21: _Mitford's Tales_. Mary Russell Mitford (1787-1855), a
novelist and dramatist who enjoyed an immense vogue. "Her inimitable
series of country sketches, drawn from her own experiences at Three
Mile Cross, entitled 'Our Village,' began to appear in 1819 in the
'Lady's Magazine,' a little-known periodical, whose sale was thereby
increased from 250 to 2,000. ... The sketches had an enormous success,
and were collected in five volumes, published respectively in 1824,
1826, 1828, 1830, and 1832. ... The book may be said to have laid the
foundation of a branch of literature hitherto untried. The sketches
resemble Dutch paintings in their fidelity of detail."--_Dic. Nat.
Biog_.]