himself with the essence of the greatest figures in English literature, he was the imitator of none. It would be hard to name a writer of equal eminence whose horizon had a wider range. From Patrick Walker's Biographia Presbyteriana to The History of Notorious Pirates, from Penn's Fruits of Solitude to Les Diaboliques of Barbey d'Aurevilly, there was no extreme which could exceed the measure of his flight.
In compiling a bibliographical essay on any author a twofold object must be kept in view. Firstly, an accurate catalogue of the writer's works must be drawn up in such a manner as to be most useful to the literary student; and secondly, careful collations of the books which are the objects of his search must be placed before the bibliophile, whose aim rarely extends beyond the acquisition of rarities. In the following bibliography, I have endeavoured to meet the views both of the student and of the collector. The first two parts deal with the original editions of Stevenson; in the first I have described those which come within the domain of pure literature, and in the second his juvenile effusions, his Davos toy-books, his privately printed vers d'occasion, and other trifles much considered in the auction rooms. In the third, fourth, and fifth parts are included his contributions to books and periodicals, and here I feel that I stand in need of indulgence.[1] No effort has
- ↑ I have not cared to swell the bulk of the book by inserting collations of anthologies, etc., which contain previously published poems of Stevenson. Such works as Mr. Henley's Lyra Heroica Living English Poets have no bibliographical value.
