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Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Stevenson was born November 13, 1850 in Edinburgh, Scotland, the only son of respectable middle-class parents. Throughout his childhood, he suffered chronic health problems that confined him to bed. In his youth, his strongest influence was that of his nurse, Allison Cunningham, who often read Pilgrim's Progress and The Old Testament to him. In 1867, Stevenson entered Edinburgh University as a science student, where it was tacitly understood that he would follow his...

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Robert Louis Stevenson Essays

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Both Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein tell cautionary tales of scientists abusing their creative powers to exist in another sphere where they cannot be directly blamed for their actions. Though...

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

With his Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson presents encounters between several upstanding members of Victorian society and Mr. Hyde, a man who seems to disregard all social conventions in favor of selfishness and barbarity. To be...

College

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

“I learned to recognize the thorough and primitive duality of man . . . if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both” (41).

So says Henry Jekyll in a heartfelt letter to his best friend, Henry Utterson. His...

10th Grade

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

In Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Stevenson employs Utterson as the narrator and voice of the novella, as well as the investigator or detective figure that allows the story to be ‘discovered’ dramatically by the reader. Utterson also provides a contrast...

Treasure Island

One particular climax in the story "Treasure Island" occurs when Jim Hawkins unwittingly stumbles into enemy camp and is captured by Long John Silver and his pirates. This passage is of particular importance because it ultimately allows Jim to...