eBook Myself and the Other Fellow: A Life of Robert Louis Stevenson download

Robert Louis Stevenson is one of my favorite literary figures. Among many, however, he is not fashionable (for example, the first seven editions of "The Norton Anthology of English Literature" ignored him altogether). But there are at least a few others who feel as I do. RLS was revered by Henry James, Graham Greene, Vladimir Nabokov, and Jorge Luis Borges. Borges even wrote, "If you don't like Stevenson, there must be something wrong with you," and in his large, carefully tended private library, he kept his Stevenson books separate in a special place of honor.

"Tusi Tala" was the name given RLS by the natives when he settled on Samoa, where he lived the last four years of his life. It means "teller of tales", and it is doubly fitting. For not only was RLS one of the best tale-tellers in world literature since Scheherazade, he authored the first fiction published in the Samoan language (a local missionary translated "The Bottle Imp", a moral fable set in Hawaii, and published it in his church magazine).

I actually would have preferred "Tusi Tala" as the title of this biography over MYSELF & THE OTHER FELLOW. That phrase comes from a Stevenson letter in which he referred to the occasional experience, usually as an invalid with a high fever, when he was aware of having "two consciousnesses" - one irrational and absurd, the other being his "right mind." And, of course, in "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", RLS wrote the classic work of the double personality, one respectable and conventional, the other debauched and sinister.

In any event, in MYSELF & THE OTHER FELLOW Claire Harman gives us a thorough and very good biography of RLS. Harman is a Stevenson scholar (she has edited collections of his essays, poems, and stories). One of the strengths of her biography is that she goes beyond the papers of RLS to the letters and papers of his contemporaries - people like Henry James, Edmund Gosse, and G. K. Chesterton - for their anecdotes and impressions of RLS.

One of the fascinating tidbits she uncovers concerns the novelist John Galsworthy, who in 1892 set sail from England to pay tribute to RLS (who did not even know Galsworthy). But Galsworthy could get no further than Adelaide, Australia. On the clipper by which he departed from Australia, Galsworthy made friends with the first mate, who happened to be Merchant Seaman Joseph Conrad. No doubt Galsworthy explained to Conrad that he had been on a pilgrimage to visit RLS. And, to complete this little circle, Conrad's "Heart of Darkness", written just seven years later, draws heavily on Stevenson's novella "The Ebb-Tide". Plus, in Stevenson's short story, "The Merry Men", a man driven mad on an isolated Scottish isle recounts a tale ending with the cry, "the horror - the horror o' the sea!"

That is an example of another strength of Harman's biography - her tracing of influences of RLS on other authors, as well as works that influenced him. On the other side of the ledger, she gives too much attention to the possibilities of sexual sensationalism, especially to the theme of homoeroticism. For what it's worth, in the end she finds no hard evidence that RLS actually had homosexual encounters, or that he was sexually intimate with his stepdaughter Belle. Overall, Harman's biography tends towards being a psychological one, consistent with her choice of title for the book.

I have now read three biographies of RLS. MYSELF & THE OTHER FELLOW is the most thoroughgoing. But I don't think it is the best introduction to RLS. For that, I would recommend "Dead Man's Chest", by Nicholas Rankin, which is a little offbeat but somewhat easier to read and gives, I think, a better feel for RLS the man.

Excellent book - from a happy customer David L.

I was very pleased with the quality of the book I purchased. The book was in great condition, arrived quickly and was very reasonably priced.

I came across a signed copy of this at a book sale in Saratoga, CA and wondered how a book written about an Scottish/English author signed by a woman from the East Coast found it's way to California, and then I discovered to my delight the California connection in Fanny, the miner's wife Stevenson fell in love with, and that RLS actually spent time roughing it here in a miner's camp. The story of his relationship with Fanny, his parents, and his step-son was heartfelt, as was that of his fluctuating state of health. I only wish Harman had considered alcoholism as contributing factor to both his health and relationships. I was struck by how much Fanny's mental descent mirrored that of my great-grandmother Mama Grace, an Oklahoma homesteader, who fought for survival of her ten children with an alcoholic husband, only to degenerate into a twisted woman when the fight was over. I also wish Harman had written about his mother's response to RLS' death.

What impressed me the most about this book was how well Harman integrates quotes from Stevenson and those who knew him into the overall flow of the book. Her total immersion as a scholar and editor into Stevenson and his works shows, and her style of writing meshes with his -- lively, personable, and very readable.

Dana Bagshaw
author, Mama Grace

Robert Louis Stevenson may be the single most important minor writer in the English literary tradition. A crucial influence on both Borges and Nabokov (as well as Graham Greene and Joseph Conrad), he died without the full-scale long masterpiece that might have cinched his reputation. But his shorter romances -- TREASURE ISLAND, KIDNAPPED, THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE -- made him one of the most popular English writers during his lifetime and made him a genuine worldwide celebrity. In this beautifully written compact biography, Clare Harman establishes a fine "through-line" from detailing his life that began in Edinburgh as the scion of a wealthy family of lighthouse engineers and ended with a cerebral hemorrhage in his bizarre Xanadu in Samoa occupied by his wife, her family, and his many hangers-on. Harman's ability to make sense of Stevenson's wild peregrinations (often occasioned by the whim of a moment) and sustain the reader's interest from beginning to end is remarkable, and her readings of his fictions are just, brief, and never intrusive. She delineates very clearly and sharply the many members of his extended family with his estimable wife Fanny, and makes the whole thing come very much to life.