Preview of The Lantern Bearer: A Life of Robert Louis Stevenson Summary:

Robert Louis Stevenson's writings took on a wide variety of subjects and form.

Famous for his romantic adventures, which inspired many of the romantic novels written in the late nineteenth century, Stevenson was also an essayist, a poet, and a promising modern novelist. A tireless experimenter, at the very end of his life he hit upon the right method for combining depth of character with an effective plot in the unfinished Weir of Hermiston (1896).

Stevenson believed that writing should be performed with "gusto," and when health permitted, Stevenson lived his life with gusto as well. Like that of his subject, James Playsted Wood's writing contains, as one reviewer put it, "such rush and color it sounds as if RLS had just left the room." Wood's vigorous style suits the personality he analyzes, and brings to life the strong-willed author of such classics as Treasure Island (1883), Kidnapped (1886), and Dr...