1894) was born in Scotland and died in Samoa at the end of a life of travels, during which he produced novels, short stories, literary essays, poetry, drama, and travel writing. Longmans. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde considered gothic novel set in the Victorian Era by Robert Louis Stevenson, who can be seen as ‘the last Victorian or the first Modernist’ author.Fusing an exploitive classism of Victorian age and the growing futile atmosphere of Modernism, Stevenson captures and exposes the lies of an oppressive and repressive society. Lovecraft: From Weird to Modern Gothic, Clark Ashton Smith: Master of Gothic, Pulp and SF classics, Guitar Chords: Easy-to-Use, Easy-to-Carry, One Chord on Every Page, Piano & Keyboard Chords: Easy-to-Use, Easy-to-Carry, One Chord on Every Page, Beginner's Guide to Reading Music: Easy to Use, Easy to Learn; A Simple Introduction for All Ages. His grandfather was Professor of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh University, his father a civil engineer of over 40 prestigious lighthouses, so there were great expectations for the young Stevenson. by Jenni Calder (1981) The plot of the story revolves around Dr. Jekyll’s mysterious medical potion that separates the two identities of human being through creating his evil double, Mr. Hyde. Lovecraft, unaware – as is often the case – that he was writing in an emerging tradition. Victorian novel and Dickens: riassunto. It was an age of great contrasts because, on one hand it was a time of progress and social reforms, on the other hand a time of social injustices, poverty and hypocrisy. The Victorian Age is also known for the intense production of novels, however, in this case, Stevenson seemed to follow the other way around and surprise his public with a Gothic novella instead. A great deal of change took place during this period--brought about because of the Industrial Revolution; so it's not surprising that the literature of the period is often concerned with social reform. The lifelong tension with his father provided much for Stevenson to explore in his writing, extending beyond the natural rebellion of youth, to deeper examinations of the conflict between the past and the present, and the superficiality of society undermined by the inherent ugliness of humankind. People had no normal houses and no water . 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The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardian period, and its later half overlaps with the first part of the Belle Époque era of Continental Europe. The book was a big hit from the moment of its appearance in January 1887. THE VICTORIAN AGE The Victorian age took its name from Queen Victoria. Queen Victoria ruled the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland for more than 63 years. Here, he worked on his collection of essays that he wrote for the Cornhill magazine. He had a flair for writing since he was a young boy. He met the American novelist ‘Henry James’ and had him revise ‘A Child’s Garden of Verses’. The growth of cities, a ready domestic market and … The living conditions in the slums were very sad. Towards the end, along with his family, he spent most of his time in the Southern Seas. The Victorian era seems to be a time of many contradictions and secrets from the rest of society. His short novels, his racy plots, his emphasis on storytelling rather than the reflection of a supposed real life was out of step with the elite literary mood of the late Victorian, and early twentieth century. They are perceptive and informative. The Victorian Double: Victorian Litterature. Dric is related to Heather Stevenson and Keri Elizabeth Stevenson as well as 2 additional people. He was diagnosed with tuberculosis in his youth and the disease remained with him until the end. In 1876, Stevenson fell in love with Fanny Osbourne, an American lady who was a widow that had a son. However his mind was saturated by the works of Shakespeare, Sir Walter Scott, John Bunyan, The Arabian Nights and the elaborate, moralising fairy tales of Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen. Walter Peter: He was the most significant prose writer of the later Victorian era. It was a complicated book and was less famous as compared to Treasure Island which was an adventurous tale filled with emotions of all kinds. • It was very popular among the educated middle-classes; it reflected their values. Victorian era, the period between about 1820 and 1914, corresponding roughly to the period of Queen Victoria’s reign (1837–1901) and characterized by a class-based society, a growing number of people able to vote, a growing state and economy, and Britain’s status as the most powerful empire in the world. Stevenson lived during the Victorian age. The Victorian era is famous for its double standards and stringency which is exactly the subject matter of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The work can also be seen as a Victorian morality story of unleashed sexual depravity or as an allegory for the double life of the Victorian … Above all the Victorian age was an age of fiction. There are variant spellings of the name, including Stephenson. He studied, observed an imitated many famous writers of his time in prose as well as poetry. Letteratura straniera — File in lingua inglese riguardante storia e cultura del Victorian age: da Charles Dickens a Charles Darwin, The Late Victorian … If Thackeray is our youth, Stevenson is our boyhood: and though this is not the most artistic thing in him, it is the most important thing in the history of Victorian art. These are undoubtedly good examples of what was characteristic of the age. It was first published in 1866. During this time, the Londonians witnessed how the quiet streets became crowded … Stevenson was born in Edinburgh in 1850; he studied engineering and law in Edinburgh University, but he loved literature so he decided to become a writer. The start of the ‘Treasure Island’ happened as a game with his stepson. As was the tradition in the Victorian era Stevenson’s early work was initially serialized in magazines (as, of course, was that of Dickens, H.G. His important works are The Renaissance, Imaginary Portraits. The Victorian Period revolves around the political career of Queen Victoria.She was crowned in 1837 and died in 1901 (which put a definite end to her political career). Illustration by Charles Raymond Macauley for the 1904 edition of The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He wrote his first book inspired by the Covenanters movement – The Pentland Rising. Pam Lock, University of Bristol. The book was a big hit from the moment of its appearance in January 1887. “Victorian Compromise” is a commonly used term which needs no comments. Victorian Context. ... Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer. Victorian Era is seen as the link between Romanticism of the 18th century and the realism of the 20th century. The Victorians were great moralisers. He was rebellious to his parents’ religion and refused to accept church doctrines blindly. Green & co. was the publisher name. Famous magazines such as ‘The Portfolio’ and ‘Macmillan’s Magazine’ featured his essays – ‘Roads’ and ‘Ordered South’ in 1873 and 1874, respectively. The reign of Queen Victoria. Although a monumental letter writer and poet (A Child’s Garden of Verses in 1885), he is best known for his series of successful novels and short stories, Treasure Island (1883), Kidnapped (1886), Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), and The Master of Ballantrae (1889). Stevenson, son of a celebrated civil engineer, seemed naturally attuned to, and repulsed by, this contrast. R. L. Stevenson. In the towns was work for everyone because the Industrial Revolution had started. He spent many years in France. The Victorian age is the period of the reign of Queen Victoria. They often borrowed books from “circulating libraries”. Lighthouse Engineering was their family business and Robert Louis Stevenson was expected to carry the same forward. The Victorian Age, Part Two. The novels have a stress on realism and an attempt to describe the daily struggles of ordinary men that the middle class reader could associate with Stevenson reveals the beast within, insinuating the fear of the civilized man, that the inner neanderthal might rise and overcome this new found sophistication, and drag down the advancement of science and nationhood. They moved to Bournemouth in the South County of England but the climate did not suit Robert Louis Stevenson. He was appreciated by many critics, Graham Balfour being one of them. A great deal of change took place during this period--brought about because of the Industrial Revolution; so it's not surprising that the literature of the period is often concerned with social reform. The period was marked by freedom from wars and internal strife. During these times, he wrote ‘An Inland Voyage’ in 1878 and ‘Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes’ in the year 1879. III. R. L. Stevenson: Elements of Imagination in later Victorian age are best exemplified in Essays of Stevenson. Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) is a late-Victorian variation on ideas first raised in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818). 7 – 19 October 1880: RLS, his wife and Lloyd stayed in the Grosvenor Hotel, Victoria Station (RLS also visited the Savile Club), before travelling on to Davos (via Paris and Troyes) for their first winter there. Victorian Era Jekyll and Hyde. Later, in Scotland, he started developing it as a book. In the years 1881 and 1882, Stevenson spent most of his time publishing essays in Switzerland. Features, stories and podcasts, and a taste of the fiction to come. He was in California without any money and ill. Victorian Age (1837-1900) is remarkable for the rapid development of the art, mechanical inventions, and for the human knowledge by the discoveries of the science. Robert Louis Stevenson (born Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson; 13 November 1850 – 3 December 1894) was a Scottish novelist, poet and travel writer, most noted for Treasure Island, Kidnapped, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and A Child's Garden of Verses. It’s worth remembering that Edinburgh, the city of Stevenson’s birth, exemplified these twin forces: the ambitious, striving energies of empire, underneath which lurked the secret city of despair and criminality, with its dark corridors and passages, hidden worlds beneath the bridges, the undulating streets with rooms carved into arches that reeked of poverty and disease. His last 14 years, spent with his wife Fanny, were marked by ill health, bed rest and travel, but he wrote his most celebrated books during that period. The novel as a genre rose to entertain the rising middle class and to depict the contemporary life in a changing society. Stevenson’s place is secure in the Gothic Tradition but his impact was wider, both during his life and after. However, determined to follow his own path in life, eventually he travelled, at great cost to his health, to San Francisco, in 1880 and shortly after, married the then divorced Fanny Osbourne. Eventually, he married her in early 1880’s in San Francisco, United States. The Stevenson’s were prosperous and Robert was their only child. Stevenson was born at 8 Howard Place, Edinburgh, Scotland, on 13 November 1850 to Thomas Stevenson (1818–1887), a leading lighthouse engineer, and his wife Margaret Isabella (born Balfour, 1829–1897). Has women’s place in society changed from Elizabethan and Victorian Eras. He returned from his voyage to Sydney at Samoa, where his family was waiting for him. He lived in the county of Davos where he owned a small ‘Chalet’ or a ‘Shack’. The grand streets above sought to flatten the landscape for their carriages and parties, with the great bridges of the industrial revolution, the pride of Scottish engineering. In the history of the United Kingdom, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. Victorian society was based on a set of moral values that could only be fulfilled by the middle and upper classes: hard work, respectability, good manners and education, patriarchal family, female chastity, repression of sexuality. Available here. But the gothic literature, from Dickens’ Bleak House to Oscar Wilde’s tale of excess and greed, The Portrait of Dorian Gray, explored the tension at the heart of Empire, of the conflict between the beast and the man within. Fanny rendered four terrible sins for the young Scot, any one of which would have secured his social damnation: she was American, married, had borne two children, and was 10 years his senior. Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson (1850–94) was born in a dank and cold Edinburgh, but travelled greatly in search of less brutal weather, finally to pass away in the temperate climes of Samoa. Lovecraft.). Stevenson evidently was not fond of the late Victorian era’s large market for popular fiction. Select this result to view Dric L Stevenson… During the Victorian era, the importance of being highly regarded by one’s peers stemmed from attitudes associated with the word “respectable.” In October 1881, the children show ‘The Sea Cook’ was inspired by Treasure Island. Many readers were women. § 23. Theme and Technique . BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD: The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21). The Victorian Age was an age of contrasts and social imbalance (progress and reforms vs poverty and social injustice). His theme of writing was fiction and travel. They promoted a code of values based on personal duty, hard work, respectability and charity. ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON: VICTORIAN HYPOCRISY AND THE DOUBLE IN LITERATURE THE STRANGE CASE OF DR JEKYLL AND MR HYDE The bohémien embodied his protest against the monotony and vulgarity of bourgeois life, leading an unconventional existence pursuing sensation and excess, and Important in that era In his book, Stevenson shows the hypocrisy of Victorian society by using duality.The book gives a description of the split ‘outward respectability and inward lust’. At the time of his death, he developed cerebral haemorrhage. His parents highly opposed the idea of him involving in a relationship with a married woman because of which she moved to California in 1878. He is best known for his ‘Treasure Island’ in 1881. Mainstream Victorian culture saw art and literature as a means of self ... Carpenter was a socialist poet and a gay activist. Andrew Noble, Robert Louis Stevenson (1983) Robert Kielty, Robert Louis Stevenson and the Fiction of Adventure (1965) Stevenson and Victorian Scotland , ed. The work can also be seen as a Victorian morality story of unleashed sexual depravity or as an allegory for the double life of the Victorian homosexual. Published by Scott-Thaw. Barrie, Arthur Conan Doyle and Thomas Hardy, and was lauded by Edith Wharton, and later by Jorge Luis Borges, Graham Greene, and John Buchan who brought Stevenson’s page-turning adventures into the middle of the twentieth century, bridging the gap between the great nineteenth century novel and the shorter, more fragmented forms of modernism. As a young boy, he was in support of the Covenanters movement which was held by a group of Protestant Churchmen that were ministered by and Elder and a group of Elders also known as the ‘Presbyterian Group’. Stevenson admired the economy of Henry James and Guy de Maupassant, reveled in the forboding gloom of Edgar Allan Poe, and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s critique of religion and the dark moments of the soul. Sharon Aronofsky Weltman's review of Cruising with Robert Louis Stevenson: Travel, Narrative, and the Colonial Body; Victorian Social and Political History: An Overview; Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Victorian views of suicide; Science and Technology. The Victorian Period revolves around the political career of Queen Victoria.She was crowned in 1837 and died in 1901 (which put a definite end to her political career). Robert Louis Stevenson, one of the masters of the Victorian adventure story, was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on November 13, 1850. His time in England is also considered very fruitful. In his time, he was a popular author and associated with many of the most notable writers of the late Victorian period, although the elitism of some contemporary literary critics sought to bury him with the Romantics until his reputation was rescued in the twentieth century, as a skillful storyteller of the gothic and fantastic. Robert Louis Stevenson was born on the 13th of November, 1850 in Edinburgh, Scotland. Even though he suffered from long-term tuberculosis, it wasn’t the cause of his death. The Victorian Age is remarked by social and economic changes. The Victorian Age Robert Louis Stevenson Raffaele Nardella http://www.britannica.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/image-1.jpeg Stevenson has been much criticised for his taste for the fantastic. Stevenson’s realistic fictional novella became a masterpiece due to its great influence on the way people think and act in the Victorian age. The Victorian Age is also known for the intense production of novels, however, in this case, Stevenson seemed to follow the other way around and surprise his public with a Gothic novella instead. The Victorian age took its name from Queen Victoria. The Victorian era seems to be a time of many contradictions and secrets from the rest of society. ‘The Fortnightly’, another influential 19th-century magazine published his review of ‘Fables in Song’ by Lord Lytton. As with many late Victorian writers, from Arthur Machen to Oscar Wilde, the mood of hedonism and liberalism – the mode of the literate avant garde – had become attractive to those exposed to the diverse ideas of others. He became a celebrated, successful writer and finished his years in the Islands of Samoa, his life extinguished by a heart attack, at the relatively young age of 46. Stevenson uses Mr. Hyde to show that Victorian people and society are imperfect and have dualities that Victorian values deny, ultimately leading to the destruction of the repressed person or society. Robert Louis Stevenson was a weak child as he was growing up and was prone to illnesses. During his time in the sea, he wrote ‘In the South Seas’ that was published in 1896 and ‘A Footnote to History’ that was published in the same year of 1892. Patrick Brantlinger notes this, proposing the novel is, in fact, “an unconscious allegory about the commercialization of literature” (198). During the Victorian era, Britain could claim to be the world's superpower, despite social inequality at home and burgeoning industrial rivals overseas. Born to respectable parents at the height of the British Empire, Stevenson’s ill health led him to spend much of his time reading, or being read to, frequently unable to join his peers at school. They have also lived in Lake City, SC and Oak Ridge, NJ. The flourishing England ruled by Queen Victoria was the main setting for this significant slice of human history. In 1885, after finishing Treasure Island, he started ‘Prince Otto’. Robert Louis Stevenson (b. Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) is a late-Victorian variation on ideas first raised in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818). In 1882, while living in Davos, Switzerland, he was diagnosed with lung haemorrhages when he was working on short stories – Thrawn Janet and The Merry Men. Robert Lewis/Louis Balfour Stevenson Occupation Novelist Born 13 November 1850, Edinburgh, Scotland Died 3 December 1894, Vailima, Samoan Islands Gender Male Literary period Victorian Genre Victorian … This text appears as the Life and Works biography in the Flame Tree Publishing 2015 edition of The Strange Case of Jekyll and Hyde. In common with many artists, writers and musicians of the era Stevenson’s behaviour and interests were thought to be dangerously Bohemian, and in his case led to a scandalous outcome: he fell in love with Fanny Van De Grift Osbourne. Stevenson was preoccupied with duality, the twin forces that wrestle for the mind and fortune of humankind, as he said in his posthumously published letter to his cousin Bob Stevenson: ‘the prim, obliterated polite face of life, and the broad, bawdy and orgiastic’. Dr.Jekyll and Mr Hyde is a renowned work of Robert Louis Stevenson from the Victorian era. Below is the detailed biography of Robert Louis Stevenson, a Scottish poet and essayist. Initially he consented to the study of engineering at the University of Edinbugh from 1867, but soon found the pull of literature to be too seductive. The collection was called ‘Virginibus Puerisque’ and was published in 1881. In The Age of Improvement, 1783–1867 (1959)—the title itself arguing a pronounced feature of the Victorian period—Asa Briggs identifies four main elements of Victorianism: “the gospel of work, ‘seriousness’ of character, respectability and self-help” (p. 450). Stevenson’s single-minded dislike of authoritarianism provided the background to much of his writing. Victorian Period. SF & Fantasy | Fiction, Art, Movies, Music & More. The period of her reign, from 1837 to 1901, became known as the Victorian Age. He died of the cerebral haemorrhage, that he developed at the later stage. The Victorian era was a time of many changes, advances, and difficulties in England. The characters used in the novella are an example of what Stevenson thought of London in Victorian times. His grandfather was Professor of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh University, his father a civil engineer of over 40 prestigious lighthouses, so there were great expectations for the young Stevenson. On the day of his death, he was working on ‘The Beach of Falesá’ which remained unfinished. Indeed the writers who could share his inclinations were relatively unknown to him: Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, H.P. His early instincts for storytelling were clear, in spite of the best attempts of his family who expected him to pursue a career in science. Its first historical record is from pre-10th-century England. Introduction. Often regarded as a children’s writer, this highlights a significant misunderstanding of the literature of the Victorian period. - The early Victorian novel whose main representative was Charles Dickens dealt with social themes and expressed the ideals of the age. Moral views of people living around this time have changed imensely to the present. The Victorian period spanned the reign of Queen Victoria, from 1837 to 1901. Green & co. was the publisher name. The Victorian era is famous for its double standards and stringency which is exactly the subject matter of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. During this period, the novel made rapid progress. Looking at social class through a Robert Louis Stevenson's novel published in the Victorian era, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde shows how social class has build an strong idea in the way characters act and think. The Strange Case of Jekyll and Hyde is an altogether darker story than most of his other novels, but an adventure springing from everyday life, it dwells on many of the same themes. Stevenson’s monster, however, is not artificially created from stitched-together body parts, but rather emerges fully formed from the dark side of the human personality. The Victorian Age was an age of important social and political reforms, of technological and scientific progress, and Britain became the most powerful country in the world thanks to its colonial expansion. Stevenson’s realistic fictional novella became a masterpiece due to its great influence on the way people think and act in the Victorian age. The characters used in the novella are an example of what Stevenson thought of London in Victorian times. The Alps were supposed to be beneficial to Stevenson’s health. He died of the cerebral haemorrhage, that he developed at the later stage. Sharon Aronofsky Weltman's review of Cruising with Robert Louis Stevenson: Travel, Narrative, and the Colonial Body; Victorian Social and Political History: An Overview; Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Victorian views of suicide; Science and Technology. In the towns, people lived in slums. (This experience would be echoed only a few decades later by H.P. He was christened Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson. At about age 18, he changed the spelling of "Lewis" to "Louis", and he dropped "Balfour" in 1873. Actually, I’m a guitar player too (author of Guitar Chords 1200 4.5 star reviews), so expect some articles on music, guitarists and album covers. If Thackeray is our youth, Stevenson is our boyhood: and though this is not the most artistic thing in him, it is the most important thing in the history of Victorian art.