Catriona - Robert Louis Stevenson

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Résumé :
A good conscience is eight parts of courage. -Robert Louis Stevenson, Catriona Catriona: A Sequel to Kidnapped-Being Memoirs of the Further Adventures of David Balfour at Home and Abroad (1892) by Robert Louis Stevenson is a companion volume to the author's classic Kidnapped. But it falls more into the category of historical romance than its predecessor. Unlike the daring adventures of Kidnapped, Stevenson here attempts to rely instead on building strong characters and a complex plot. Catriona picks up where its prequel ended-at 2 pm on August 25, 1751. It begins as the hero David Balfour, is setting off to win justice for a friend who has been falsely arrested. While not successful in freeing his friend, David's efforts lead him to Catriona and a series of adventures around Europe and involve them in the continental politics of their generation.

Biographie:
Robert Louis Stevenson (13 November 1850 - 3 December 1894) was a British novelist, poet, essayist, musician and travel writer. His most famous works are Treasure Island, Kidnapped, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and A Child's Garden of Verses. He was a literary celebrity during his lifetime, and now ranks as the 26th most translated author in the world. His works have been admired by many other writers, including Jorge Luis Borges, Arthur Conan Doyle, Ernest Hemingway, Rudyard Kipling, and Jack London. Stevenson was a celebrity in his own time, but he was seen for much of the 20th century as a second-class writer. He became relegated to children's literature and horror genres, condemned by literary figures such as Virginia Woolf (daughter of his early mentor Leslie Stephen), and he was gradually excluded from the canon of literature taught in schools. His exclusion reached its nadir in the 1973 2,000-page Oxford Anthology of English Literature where he was entirely unmentioned, and The Norton Anthology of English Literature excluded him from 1968 to 2000 (1st-7th editions), including him only in the 8th edition (2006). The late 20th century brought a re-evaluation of Stevenson as an artist of great range and insight, a literary theorist, an essayist and social critic, a witness to the colonial history of the Pacific Islands, and a humanist. He was praised by Roger Lancelyn Green, one of the Oxford Inklings, as a writer of a consistently high level of literary skill or sheer imaginative power and a pioneer of the Age of the Story Tellers along with H. Rider Haggard. He is now evaluated as a peer of authors such as Joseph Conrad (whom Stevenson influenced with his South Seas fiction) and Henry James, with new scholarly studies and organisations devoted to him. Throughout the vicissitudes of his scholarly reception, Stevenson has remained popular worldwide. According to the Index Translationum, Stevenson is ranked the 26th most translated author in the world, ahead of Oscar Wilde and Edgar Allan Poe.

Sommaire:
Robert Louis Stevenson was a Scottish writer born on November 13, 1850, in Edinburgh, United Kingdom. He became renowned for his diverse body of work, which includes novels, essays, poetry, and travel writing. Some of his most celebrated works are Treasure Island, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Kidnapped, and A Child s Garden of Verses. Stevenson was educated at the University of Edinburgh and attended both the Edinburgh Academy Senior School and Edinburgh Law School. Although initially studying law, he pursued a career in writing, drawing inspiration from authors such as Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe, Walter Scott, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Guy de Maupassant. He married Fanny Stevenson in 1880, and they lived together until his death in 1894. Stevenson s writing often explored themes of adventure, morality, and the duality of human nature, particularly evident in Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. He spent the latter part of his life in Samoa, where he passed away on December 3, 1894, at the age of 44. His works have left a lasting impact on literature, influencing generations of writers and readers....