english compilation

7/29/2019 English Compilation

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Research in English IV

Compilation of Ten Famous Classical Writersand their Masterpieces

Submitted by:

Jose Emmanuel S. Maningas

Submitted to:

Ms. Regine O. Tresvalles


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The coming into being of the notion of 'author' constitutes theprivileged moment of individualizationin the history of ideas.

Michel Foucault (1926 - 1984)1. Dante Alighieri

Consider your origins: you were not made to live as brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge.

Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), Italian poet, and one of the supreme figuresof world literature, who was admired for the depth of his spiritual vision andfor the range of his intellectual accomplishment.

THE DIVINE COMEDY

Dantes epic masterpiece, The Divine Comedy, was probably begun about

1307; it was completed shortly before his death. The work is an allegoricalnarrative, in verse of great precision and dramatic force, of the poets imaginaryjourney through hell, purgatory, and heaven. It is divided into three sections,correspondingly named the Inferno (Hell), the Purgatorio (Purgatory), and theParadiso (Paradise). In each of these three realms the poet meets withmythological, historical, and contemporary personages. Each character issymbolic of a particular fault or virtue, either religious or political; and thepunishment or rewards meted out to the characters further illustrate the larger


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meaning of their actions in the universal scheme. Dante is guided through helland purgatory by Virgil, who is, to Dante, the symbol of reason. The woman

Dante loved, Beatrice, whom he regards as both a manifestation and aninstrument of the divine will, is his guide through paradise.

Each section contains 33 cantos, except for the first section, which has,in addition, a canto serving as a general introduction. The poem is written interza rima (third rhyme), a three-line stanza rhyming aba, bcb, cdc, etc. (seeVersification). Dante intended the poem for his contemporaries and thus wroteit in Italian rather than Latin. He named the poem La commedia(The Comedy)because it ends happily, in heaven, his journey climaxed by a vision of God and

by a complete blending of his own will with that of the deity. The adjectivedivina(divine) was first added to the title in a 1555 edition.

The work, which provides a summary of the political, scientific, and

philosophical thought of the time, may be interpreted on four levels: the literal,

allegorical, moral, and mystical. Indeed, part of the majesty of this work restson its multiplicity of meaning even more than on its masterfully poetic anddramatic qualities. It is supreme as a dramatization of medieval Christiantheology, but even beyond that framework, Dantes imaginary voyage can be

understood as an allegory of the purification of ones soul and of theachievement of inner peace through the guidance of reason and love.

2. Geoffrey Chaucer

The worshipful father and first founder and embellisher of ornate eloquence in our English, I mean MasterGeoffrey Chaucer. William Caxton (1422? 1491)

Geoffrey Chaucer (1343?-1400), one of the greatest English poets, whosemasterpiece, The Canterbury Tales, was one of the most important influenceson the development of English literature. His life is known primarily throughrecords pertaining to his career as a courtier and civil servant under theEnglish kings Edward III and Richard II.


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The son of a prosperous London wine merchant, Chaucer may have

attended the Latin grammar school of Saint Paul's Cathedral and may havestudied law at the Inns of Court. In 1357 he was page to the countess of Ulster,Elizabeth, the wife of Prince Lionel, third son of Edward III; there, he wouldhave learned the ways of the court and the use of arms. By 1367 Chaucer was

an esquire to Edward. About 1366 he married Philippa Roet, a lady-in-waitingto the queen and afterward in the service of John of Gaunt, who was duke ofLancaster and Edward's fourth son. Chaucer served as controller of customsfor London from 1374 to 1386 and clerk of the king's works from 1389 to 1391,in which post he was responsible for maintenance of royal buildings and parks.About 1386 Chaucer moved from London to a country residence (probablyGreenwich), where in 1386 he was justice of the peace and representative toParliament. He traveled on several diplomatic missions to France, one to Spainin 1366, and two to Italy from 1372 to 1373 and in 1378. In the last year of hislife, Chaucer leased a house within the precincts of Westminster Abbey. Afterhis death, he was buried in the Abbey (an honor for a commoner), in what hassince become the Poets' Corner.

3. Thomas Kempis

Love feels no burden, thinks nothing of trouble, attempts what is above its strength, pleads no

excuse of impossibility; for it thinks all things lawful for itself, and all things possible.


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Thomas Kempis (1380?-1471), German monk and writer, who is

generally accepted as the author ofThe Imitation of Christ, a devotional treatise

that became immensely influential. His original name was Thomas Hemerken.

He was born in Kempen, Prussia, and educated at Deventer in the Netherlands.

In 1407 he entered the Augustinian monastery of Mount Saint Agnes, near

Zwolle, in the Netherlands, and was ordained a priest in 1413. The greater part

of his long life was passed in the seclusion of the cloister, where he copied

manuscripts, counseled, and wrote. Thomas's writings are representative of the

devotio moderna, a movement of spiritual reform centered in the Netherlands

that stressed the moral example of Christ. Thomas also wrote sermons,

religious biographies, and devotional books for the young.

4. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Eliminate the impossible; whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), British physician, novelist, anddetective-story writer, best known as the creator of the character of mastersleuth Sherlock Holmes.

Arthur Conan Doyle was born on May 22, 1859, in Edinburgh, Scotland,and educated at Stonyhurst College and the University of Edinburgh. From

1882 to 1890 he practiced medicine in Southsea, England. A Study in Scarlet,the first of about 60 stories featuring Sherlock Holmes, appeared in 1887. The

characterization of Holmes, particularly his ability of ingenious deductivereasoning, was based on one of Conan Doyle's own university professors.Equally brilliant creations are the characters who play Holmes's foils: his friendDr. Watson, the good-natured narrator of the stories, and the master criminalProfessor Moriarty. Conan Doyle was so successful in his literary career that

approximately five years after his first works were published he abandoned hismedical practice to devote his entire time to writing.


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Conan Doyle served in the Boer War (1899-1902) as a physician, and onhis return to England wrote the nonfiction books The Great Boer War (1900)

and The War in South Africa: Its Causes and Conduct (1902), attempting tojustify England's participation in the fighting. For these works he was knighted

in 1902. During World War I he wrote History of the British Campaign in France

and Flanders(6 volumes, 1916-1920) as a tribute to British bravery.

An advocate of spiritualism beginning in the late 1880s, his lectures andwritings on the subject increased markedly after the death of his eldest son inthe war. Conan Doyles autobiography, Memories and Adventures, waspublished in 1924. He died in Crowborough, Sussex, England, on July 7, 1930.

5. Alexandre Dumas

It is only rarely that one can see in a little boy the promise of a man, but one can almostalways see in a little girl the threat of a woman.

Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870), French novelist and playwright of theromantic period, known as Dumaspre. Dumas, the most widely read of all

French writers, is best remembered for his historical novels The ThreeMusketeers(1844; trans. 1846) and The Count of Monte-Cristo(1844; trans.1846).

Dumas was born in Villers-Cotterts, Aisne, July 24, 1802. He was the

son of a general and the grandson of a nobleman who had settled in SantoDomingo (Dominican Republic) and married a black woman there. He had littleformal education but read voraciously and was especially attracted to 16th-


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and 17th-century adventure stories. While working as a clerk, he attendedperformances of an English Shakespearean company and was inspired to write

drama. The Comdie Franaise produced his playHenri III et sa cour(Henry IIIand His Court) in 1829 and the romantic drama Christinein 1830; both were

resounding successes.

Dumas was a prolific writer; about 1200 volumes were published underhis name. Although many were the result of collaboration or the production ofa fiction factory in which hired writers executed his ideas, almost all thewriting bears the unmistakable imprint of his personal genius andinventiveness.

Dumas's earnings were enormous but scarcely sufficient in his lateryears to sustain his extravagant style of living. He spent great sums of moneyin maintaining his estate outside Paris (Monte-Cristo), supporting numerousmistresses (one of whom was the mother of his son Alexandre), purchasingartworks, and making up the losses incurred by numerous business ventures.At his death, on December 5, 1870, he was virtually bankrupt.

Besides his historical novels, the works of Dumas include the plays

Antony(1831), La tour de Nesle(The Tower of Nesle, 1832), Catherine Howard(1834), and L'Alchimiste(The Alchemist, 1839), as well as numerous

dramatizations of his own fiction. He also wrote memoirs, which give a vividpicture of his times.

6. Mark Twain

Mark Twain, pseudonym of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910),American writer and humorist, whose best work is characterized by broad,

often irreverent humor or biting social satire. Twains writing is also known for


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realism of place and language, memorable characters, and condemnation ofhypocrisy and oppression.

THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER

A visit from a boyhood friend reminded Twain of youthful escapades inHannibal. After two or three false starts, Twain found the right approach and

worked on The Adventures of Tom Sawyer at intervals throughout 1874 and1875. Published in 1876 it established Twain as a master of character and

situation as well as humor. This celebration of boyhood in a town on theMississippi River draws heavily on Twains memories. In his words, Tom was

all the boy I ever knew. Rejecting the standard pattern of juvenile literature in

which good children are rewarded and bad children are punished, he wrote anovel about real youngsters, vividly and humorously describing their

impressions and their adventures.


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THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN

Almost as soon as Tom Sawyer was completed Twain planned acompanion story, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Begun in 1876 it was

repeatedly put aside but finally published in 1884. With Huckleberry Finn,

generally considered his masterpiece, Twain reach the highest level of hiscreativity. Especially outstanding is Twains portrayal of the freethinking,pioneer spirit of Huck, who fights pretense and hypocrisy with good-humoredcommon sense. Hucks adventures also provide the reader with a panorama of

American life along the Mississippi before the Civil War. Twains skill incapturing the rhythms of that life helps make the book one of the classics of

American literature.

7. Herman Melville

If it is true that talent recreates life while genius has the additional gift of crowning it with myths,Melville is first and foremost a creator of myths.Albert Camus (1913 - 1960)

Herman Melville (1819-1891), American writer whose novel Moby Dickisone of the towering literary achievements in the history of fiction. Based on adetailed knowledge of the sea, ships, and whaling, Moby Dickreveals Melville's


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profound insight into human nature and his preoccupation with human fate inthe universe. It also contains one of the most fascinating characters in fiction,

the obsessed, tormented Captain Ahab. Melville is also known for the shortnovel Billy Budd, in which he explores the tragic conflict between good and evil

and the limitations of human justice.

With Moby DickMelville reached his highest achievement as a writer.During Melvilles lifetime, however, only a handful of readers recognized itsgreatness. Ostensibly an adventure story of the whaling industry, the novel hasan action-filled plot, chapters on whales and the business of whaling, powerful

descriptions of the wild sea and its inhabitants, character sketches of theseamen aboard a whaling vessel, and a considerable amount of philosophicalmusing.

8. Saint Thomas Aquinas

Evil denotes the absence of Good. But it is not every absence of good that is called evil.

Saint Thomas Aquinas, sometimes called the Angelic Doctor and thePrince of Scholastics (1225-1274), Italian philosopher and theologian, whoseworks have made him the most important figure in Scholastic philosophy andone of the leading Roman Catholic theologians.


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Aquinas was born of a noble family in Roccasecca, near Aquino, and waseducated at the Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino and at the University

of Naples. He joined the Dominican order while still an undergraduate in 1243,the year of his father's death. His mother, opposed to Thomas's affiliation with

a mendicant order, confined him to the family castle for more than a year in a

vain attempt to make him abandon his chosen course. She released him in1245, and Aquinas then journeyed to Paris to continue his studies. He studiedunder the German Scholastic philosopher Albertus Magnus, following him toCologne in 1248. Because Aquinas was heavyset and taciturn, his fellownovices called him Dumb Ox, but Albertus Magnus is said to have predictedthat this ox will one day fill the world with his bellowing.

9. Lew Wallace

Would you hurt a man keenest,strike at his self-love.

Lew Wallace (1827-1905), American military leader and writer. His fullname is Lewis Wallace. Wallace was born in Brookville, Indiana. His lawstudies were interrupted by the Mexican War (1846-1848), in which he servedas an officer with a volunteer regiment from 1846 to 1847. During theAmerican Civil War (1861-1865), Wallace served in the Union army andreached the rank of major general. At the close of the war, he presided overseveral military courts of inquiry and was a member of the court that triedthose accused of conspiring to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln. Wallaceserved as governor of the territory of New Mexico from 1878 to 1881 and asminister to Turkey from 1881 to 1885. His novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

(1880) won him a worldwide reputation. A play (1899) and two motion pictures(1926 and 1959) have been based on the book. Wallace's other novels includeThe Fair God(1873) and The Prince of India(1893).

10. Nathaniel Hawthorne


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Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864), American novelist, whose works aredeeply concerned with the ethical problems of sin, punishment, and

atonement. Hawthorne's exploration of these themes was related to the senseof guilt he felt about the roles of his ancestors in the 17th-century persecution

of Quakers and in the 1692 witchcraft trials of Salem, Massachusetts.

By then he had already begun writing The Scarlet Letter (1850), a novelabout the adulterous Puritan Hester Prynne, who loyally refuses to reveal thename of her partner. Regarded as his masterpiece and as one of the classics of

American literature, The Scarlet Letter reveals both Hawthorne's superbcraftsmanship and the powerful psychological insight with which he probedguilt and anxiety in the human soul.

In 1850, Hawthorne moved to Lenox, Massachusetts, where he enjoyedthe friendship of the novelist Herman Melville, an admirer of Hawthorne's work.At Lenox, Hawthorne wrote The House of the Seven Gables (1851), in which he

traced the decadence of Puritanism in an old New England family, and AWonder Book for Girls and Boys (1852) and Tanglewood Tales for Girls andBoys (1853), which retold classical legends. During a short stay in WestNewton, Massachusetts, he produced The Snow-Image and Other Twice-ToldTales(1852), which show his continuing preoccupation with the themes of guiltand pride, and The Blithedale Romance (1852), a novel inspired by his life atBrook Farm.

11. Victor Hugo

Victor Hugo (1802-1885), French poet, novelist, and playwright, whosevoluminous works provided the single greatest impetus to the romanticmovement.

Hugo was born on February 26, 1802, in Besanon, and was educatedboth privately and in Paris schools. He was a precocious child, deciding at an

early age to become a writer. In 1817 he was honored by the French Academy


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for a poem, and five years later, he published his first volume of poetry, Odes etposies diverses(Miscellaneous Odes and Poems). This was followed by the

novels Han d'Islande(Han of Iceland, 1823) and Bug-Jargal(1824), and thepoems Odes et ballades(Odes and Ballads, 1826). In the preface to his long

historical drama Cromwell(1827), Hugo made a plea for freedom from the

classical restrictions. The plea quickly became the manifesto of the romanticschool. Censors banned Hugo's second drama, Marion de Lorme(1829; trans.1872), based on the life of a 17th-century French courtesan. Hugo answeredthe ban on February 25, 1830, when his poetic drama, Hernani, had atumultuous premiere that ensured the success of romanticism. Hernaniwasadapted by the Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi for his opera Ernani(1844).

The period 1829-1843 was the most productive of Hugo's career. Hisgreat historical novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1831; trans. 1833), a taleset in 15th-century Paris, made him popular and brought him, in 1841,election to the French Academy. In another novel of this period, Claude Gueux

(1834), he eloquently indicted the French penal and social systems. He wroteseveral well-received volumes of lyric poetry, including Les Orientales (1829),Les feuilles d'automne(Autumn Leaves, 1831), Les chants du crpuscule(Songsof Twilight, 1835), Les voix intrieures (Inner Voices, 1837), and Les rayons etles ombres (Sunbeams and Shadows, 1840). His dramatic successes includedLe roi s'amuse(The King Amuses Himself, 1832), adapted by Verdi for the operaRigoletto (1851); the prose drama Lucrce Borgia (1833); and the melodrama

Ruy Blas (1838; trans. 1850). Les burgraves (The Governors, 1843), however,was a complete failure.


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Hugo's disappointment over Les burgraves was overshadowed in thesame year by the drowning of one of his daughters and her husband. He

turned from poetry and took a more active role in politics. He had been raisedin a Bonapartist home, and as a young man he had become a Royalist. In 1845

he was made a peer of France by King Louis Philippe, but by the time of the

Revolution of 1848, Hugo was a Republican. In 1851, following theunsuccessful revolt against President Louis Napoleon, later Emperor NapoleonIII, Hugo fled to Belgium. In 1855 he began a 15-year-long exile on the island ofGuernsey.

While in exile Hugo wrote the fiercely scurrilous verse satire, Napolon le

petit (The Little Napoleon, 1852), the satiric poems Les chtiments(Punishments, 1853), the volume of lyric verse Les contemplations (1856), and

the first volume of his epic poem La lgende des sicles (The Legend of theAges, 1859-1883). On Guernsey he completed his longest and most famous

work, Les misrables (1862; trans. 1862), a novel that vividly describes and

condemns the social injustice of 19th-century France.

Hugo returned to France after the collapse of the Second Empire in 1870,and resumed his role in politics. He was elected first to the National Assembly

and later to the Senate. Among the most notable works of the final 15 years ofhis life are Ninety-Three (1874; trans. 1874), a novel about the French

Revolution; and L'art d'tre grand-pre (The Art of Being a Grandfather, 1877),lyric poems of his family life.

Hugo's works set a standard for the rhetorical and poetic taste ofgenerations of French youth, and he is still considered one of the finest French

poets. After his death on May 22, 1885, in Paris, his body lay in state underthe Arc de Triomphe and was later borne, in accord with his wishes, on a

pauper's hearse and buried in the Panthon, the burial place of many famousFrench citizens.

12. Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens (1812-1870), probably the best-known and, to many

people, the greatest English novelist of the 19th century. A moralist, satirist,and social reformer, Dickens crafted complex plots and striking characters that

capture the panorama of English society.


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Dickenss novels criticize the injustices of his time, especially the brutaltreatment of the poor in a society sharply divided by differences of wealth. Buthe presents this criticism through the lives of characters that seem to live andbreathe. Paradoxically, they often do so by being flamboyantly larger than life:

The 20th-century poet and critic T. S. Eliot wrote, Dickenss characters arereal because there is no one like them. Yet though these characters rangethrough the sentimental, grotesque, and humorous, few authors match

Dickenss psychological realism and depth. Dickenss novels rank among thefunniest and most gripping ever written, among the most passionate and

persuasive on the topic of social justice, and among the most psychologicallytelling and insightful works of fiction. They are also some of the most masterfulworks in terms of artistic form, including narrative structure, repeated motifs,consistent imagery, juxtaposition of symbols, stylization of characters andsettings, and command of language.

Dickens established (and made profitable) the method of first publishingnovels in serial installments in monthly magazines. He thereby reached a largeraudience including those who could only afford their reading on such aninstallment plan. This form of publication soon became popular with otherwriters in Britain and the United States.

Dickens published 15 novels, one of which was left unfinished at hisdeath. These novels are, in order of publication with serialization dates given

first: The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (1836-1837; 1837); TheAdventures of Oliver Twist (1837-1839; 1838); The Life and Adventures ofNicholas Nickleby (1838-1839; 1839); The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-1841;1841); Barnaby Rudge (1841); The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit(1843-1844; 1844); Dombey and Son (1846-1848; 1848); The Personal Historyof David Copperfield (1849-1850; 1850); Bleak House(1852-1853; 1853); HardTimes(1854); Little Dorrit(1855-1857; 1857); A Tale of Two Cities(1859); GreatExpectations(1860-1861; 1861); Our Mutual Friend(1864-1865; 1865); and TheMystery of Edwin Drood(unfinished; 1870).


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13. Jonathan Swift

Apollo was held the god of physic and sender of disease. Both were originally the same trade, and still

continue. Jonathan Swift (1667 - 1745)Anglo-Irish writer and clergyman.

Moral and Diverting

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), Anglo-Irish satirist and politicalpamphleteer, considered one of the greatest masters of English prose and oneof the most impassioned satirists of human folly and pretension. His many

pamphlets, prose, letters, and poetry were all marked by highly effective andeconomical language.

Swift was born in Dublin on November 30, 1667, and educated at Trinity

College in that city. He obtained employment in England in 1689 as secretaryto the diplomat and writer Sir William Temple. Swift's relations with hisemployer were not amicable, and in 1694 the young man went back to Ireland,

where he took religious orders. Effecting a reconciliation with Temple, hereturned to Temple's household in 1696. There he supervised the education ofEsther Johnson, daughter of the widowed companion to Temple's sister. Swiftremained with Temple until Temple's death in 1699. Swift's stay, althoughfrequently marred by quarrels with his employer, gave him the time for an

immense amount of concentrated reading and for writing.

Swift's masterpiece, Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, more popularly titled Gulliver's Travels, was published anonymously in 1726; itmet with instant success. Swift's satire was originally intended as an allegoricaland acidic attack on the vanity and hypocrisy of contemporary courts,statesmen, and political parties, but in the writing of his book, which ispresumed to have taken more than six years, he incorporated his ripest


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reflections on human society. Gulliver's Travels is, therefore, a savagely bitterwork, mocking all humankind. Nonetheless, it is so imaginatively, wittily, and

simply written that it became and has remained a favorite children's book.

Swift's last years, after the deaths of Stella and Vanessa, were

overshadowed by a growing loneliness and dread of insanity. He sufferedfrequent attacks of vertigo, and a period of mental decay ended with his deathon October 19, 1745. He was buried in his own cathedral beside the coffin ofStella. His epitaph, written by him in Latin, reads Here lies the body ofJonathan Swift, D.D., dean of this cathedral, where burning indignation can nolonger lacerate his heart. Go, traveler, and imitate if you can a man who was

an undaunted champion of liberty.

14. William Golding

William Golding (1911-1993), British novelist, who won the Nobel Prize

for literature in 1983. William Gerald Golding was born at Saint Columb Minorin Cornwall and educated at Brasenose College at the University of Oxford,where he studied English literature. Golding spent a short time working in thetheater as a writer and actor. He then trained to be a teacher, a profession heleft during World War II (1939-1945), when he served in the Royal Navy.


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After the war Golding returned to writing. His first novel, The Lord of theFlies (1954; motion picture by English director Peter Brook, 1963), wasextremely successful and is considered one of the great works of 20th-centuryliterature. Based on Golding's own wartime experiences, it is the story of agroup of schoolboys marooned on a desert island after a plane crash. Anallegory of the intrinsic corruption of human nature, it chronicles the boys'

descent from a state of relative innocence to one of revengeful barbarism.

After Lord of the Flieshe wrote several novels with similar themes of goodand evil in human nature, including The Inheritors (1955) and Pincher Martin(1956). Much of Golding's writing explores moral dilemmas and humanreactions in extreme situations. His trilogyconsisting of Rites of Passage(1980), winner of the Booker Prize, an annual award for outstanding literaryachievement in the Commonwealth of Nations; Close Quarters(1987); and FireDown Below(1989)reflects Golding's interest in the sea and sailing. His otherworks include two collections of essays, The Hot Gates (1965) and A MovingTarget (1982); and one play, The Brass Butterfly (1958). Golding was knightedin 1988 (see Knight). His last novel, The Double Tongue, was published

posthumously in 1995.

15. Robert Louis Stevenson

Books are good enough in their own way, but they are a mighty bloodless substitute for life.Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 - 1894)Scottish novelist, essayist, and poet.

Virginibus Puerisque, "An Apology for Idlers"

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894), Scottish novelist, essayist, andpoet, who contributed several classic works to children's literature. RobertLouis Balfour Stevenson was born in Edinburgh, and studied engineering andthen law at the University of Edinburgh. Since childhood, however, Stevenson'snatural inclination had been toward literature, and he eventually startedwriting seriously.


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Stevenson suffered from tuberculosis and often traveled in search ofwarm climates to ease his illness. His earliest works are descriptions of hisjourneysfor example, An Inland Voyage (1878), about a canoe trip through

Belgium and France in 1876, and Travels with a Donkey in the Cvennes(1879), an account of a journey on foot through mountains in southern France

in 1878. In 1879 he traveled to California, where in 1880 he married FrancesOsbourne, an American divorce. They returned to Europe in 1880 but movedto Saranac Lake, New York, in 1887. In 1888 they sailed from San Francisco ona cruise across the South Pacific. In 1889 they settled in Samoa on the islandof Upolu in a final effort to restore Stevenson's health, but he died there five

years later.

Stevenson's popularity is based primarily on the exciting subject matterof his adventure novels and fantasy stories. Treasure Island (1883) is a swiftlypaced story of a search for buried gold involving the boy hero Jim Hawkins andthe evil pirates Pew and Long John Silver. In the horror storyThe Strange Case


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of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), the extremes of good and evil appearstartlingly in one character when the physician Henry Jekyll discovers a drug

that changes him, first at will and later involuntarily, into the monster Hyde.Kidnapped (1886) recounts the adventures of young David Balfour and the

proud outlaw Alan Breck. Stevenson's other adventure stories include The

Black Arrow(1888) and The Master of Ballantrae(1889).

Stevenson wrote skillfully in a variety of genres. He employed the formsof essay and literary criticism in Virginibus Puerisque(1881), Familiar Studies ofMen and Books (1882), and Memories and Portraits (1887). Also critically wellreceived were such travel and autobiographical pieces as The SilveradoSquatters (1883), which records Stevenson's impressions of his stay at aCalifornia mining camp; Across the Plains(1892); and In the South Seas(1896).A Child's Garden of Verses (1885), containing some of Stevenson's best-knownpoems, is regarded by many as one of the finest collections of poetry forchildren. His other verse collections include Underwoods (1887) and Ballads

(1890). Stevenson's short stories were published in The New Arabian Nights(1882) and Island Nights' Entertainments (1893). He also collaborated with hisstepson, American writer Lloyd Osbourne, in writing the novels The Wrong Box(1889) and The Wrecker(1892).

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