Approaches to Teaching the Works of Robert Louis Stevenson
- Editor: Caroline McCracken-Flesher
- Pages: xiii & 238 pp.
- Published: 2013
- ISBN: 9781603291224 (Paperback)
- ISBN: 9781603291217 (Hardcover)
“For teachers of Stevenson from K–12 through graduate study . . . first-rate scholars provide a sophisticated overview of his wide-ranging literary output.”
—Joseph McLaughlin, Ohio University
Although Robert Louis Stevenson was a late Victorian, his work—especially Treasure Island and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde—still circulates energetically and internationally among popular and academic audiences and among young and old. Admired by Henry James, Vladimir Nabokov,
and Jorge Luis Borges, Stevenson’s fiction crosses the boundaries of genre and challenges narrow definitions of the modern and the postmodern.
Part 1 of this volume, “Materials,” provides an introduction to the writer’s life, a survey of the criticism of his work, and a variety of resources for the instructor. In part 2, “Approaches,” thirty essays address such topics as Stevenson’s dialogue with James about literature; his verse for children; his Scottish heritage; his wanderlust; his work as gothic fiction, as science fiction, as detective fiction; his critique of imperialism in the South Seas; his usefulness in the creative writing classroom; and how Stevenson encourages expansive thinking across texts, times, places, and lives.
Abigail Burnham Bloom
Oliver S. Buckton
Jenni Calder
Robert L. Caserio
Barbara Chatton
Ann C. Colley
Martin Danahay
Dennis Denisoff
Linda Dryden
Ian Duncan
Penny Fielding
Jason Goldsmith
Scott Hames
Richard J. Hill
Gordon Hirsch
Emily A. Bernhard Jackson
Wendy R. Katz
J. Derrick McClure
Glenda Norquay
Susan Oliver
Alan Riach
Thomas Richardson
Leslie S. Rush
Anne Stiles
Graham Tulloch
H. Aram Veeser
Roderick Watson
Matthew Wickman
Fiona Wilson
Acknowledgments
Preface
PART 1: MATERIALS
Introduction
Literary Criticism
Editions
Stevenson on Stevenson
Biographies
Archives and Museums
Art and Photography
Popular Culture Resources
Electronic Resources
Societies, Conferences, Journals
Maps
Chronology
PART 2: APPROACHES
Introduction
Background
Stevenson in His Place: Scotland, England, the United States, and Samoa
Scotland: Politics, Religion, Literature
American Literary Contexts
Stevenson and Scots
The Visual Culture of Robert Louis Stevenson: Face to Face
Theoretical Contexts
Realism and Romance
Modernism
Colonialism and Postcolonialism
Narrative and Narratology: The Ebb Tide of Action
Gender and Genre
Literary Contexts
The Gothic: Detection and Science Fiction
Travel Writing: Nonfiction into Fiction
Children’s Literature
The Essay and the Periodicals
Classroom Conventions and Challenges
Stevenson’s Scotland: History and Topography in the Classroom
Stevenson as Transatlantic Romanticism
Boys’ Adventure and the Allure of Violence in the Postcolonialism Class: Treasure Island
Exposure and Image: A Visual Approach
The Jekyll and Hyde Class: Overcoming Strangeness
Jekyll and Hyde as Science Fiction
Stevenson and Adaptation: Resources and Materials
The Stevenson-Osbourne Collaboration
Course Contexts
Stevenson’s Poetry in the Victorian Survey
The American Journeys in the English Survey: Breaking Down the Binaries
Young Adult Novels for English Secondary Education Students
The Pacific Story and the Indigenous Student: “The Bottle Imp” and “The Isle of Voices”
Stevenson’s Short Stories in the Creative Writing Classroom
Stevenson’s Essays in the Composition Classroom
Classroom and Courtroom across the Curriculum: The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
Jekyll and Heidegger: Stevenson in the Theory Classroom
Notes on Contributors
Survey Participants
Works Cited
Index
