Essays IV

This volume contains all of Stevenson’s early essays and book reviews: both unpublished manuscripts and published works in accurate new transcriptions. It also includes five book reviews identified here as by Stevenson for the first time. Appendices contain several unpublished essay fragments, transcriptions of his fascinating walking-tour notebooks, as well as an annotated listing of all Stevenson’s planned essay titles from the 1870s. Stevenson’s early essays were not mere exercises written in preparation for his fiction but among the most outstanding essays in the English language. High points are the experimental prose of ‘Forest Notes’ where thought and style intertwine, and the lively and thoughtful ethical discussion of ‘Lay Morals’. The text of the latter corrects countless errors found in previous editions and presents the full text of the manuscript for the first time.