Robert Louis Stevenson and Nineteenth-Century French Literature - by Katherine Ashley (Paperback)

About the Book

A comparative literary history that explores Robert Louis Stevenson and French literature.

Book Synopsis

This study looks at French literature from Stevenson's perspective and at Stevenson from a French perspective. Shedding light on how Stevenson's use of French contributes to his distinct style, and how and why the earliest French critics translated, disseminated and interpreted his books, it does so in context of the debates surrounding the development of the novel at the fin de siècle. Readers learn how the artistic debates taking place in France contributed to the evolution of Stevenson's art, but also how Stevenson became a model of literary innovation for French authors and critics who were seeking to renew the French novel.

From the Back Cover

A comparative literary history that explores Robert Louis Stevenson and French literature This study looks at French literature from Stevenson's perspective and at Stevenson from a French perspective. Shedding light on how Stevenson's use of French contributes to his distinct style, and how and why the earliest French critics translated, disseminated and interpreted his books, it does so in the context of the debates surrounding the development of the novel at the fin de siècle. Readers learn how the artistic debates taking place in France contributed to the evolution of Stevenson's art, but also how Stevenson became a model of literary innovation for French authors and critics who were seeking to renew the French novel. Katherine Ashley teaches French, English and Translation at Acadia University (Nova Scotia, Canada).

Review Quotes

A fascinating exploration of transnational Anglo-French literary history centred around a peripheral and generically innovative writer. Much inspired by French writers outside the canon, Stevenson evolved his own unique metaliterary combination of style and storytelling, then taken up by French writers as a model for how to progress beyond Naturalism.

--Richard Dury, Honorary Professorial Fellow, University of Edinburgh

About the Author

Katherine Ashley teaches French, English and Translation at Acadia University (Nova Scotia, Canada). Her research deals with nineteenth-century French literary history and Franco-British literary relations, and she has also published on Scottish literature in translation. She is the author of Edmond de Goncourt and the Novel (Rodopi, 2005), editor of Prix Goncourt, 1903-2003: essais critiques (Peter Lang, 2004), and co-editor of Carver Across the Curriculum (Cambridge Scholars, 2011).