Talk:Robert Louis Stevenson

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Robert Louis Stevenson article.
This is not a forum for general discussion about the article's subject.
Article policies
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page.
Portal:Biography
 Biography Portal
B This article has been rated as B-Class on the Project's quality scale. [FAQ]
(If you rated the article, please give a short summary at comments to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses.)
This article is supported by the Arts and Entertainment work group.
Maintenance An appropriate infobox may need to be added to this article, or the current infobox may need to be updated. Please refer to the list of biography infoboxes for further information.
Image to save
Image to save

Contents

[edit] old comments

What to do about gobbledygook near Treasure Island? --Daniel C. Boyer

You can't just look up something in Project Gutenberg and cut and paste the link. If you do, you end up with a dog's dinner like something this (broken into two lines for "readability"):

 http://promo.net/cgi-promo/pg/t9.cgi?entry=120&full=yes
 &ftpsite=ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/

The wiki software can use it to link, but apparently wiki can't get rid of all the excess characters no matter how much you try to mark it up. However, if you edit the link down to this

 http://promo.net/cgi-promo/pg/t9.cgi?entry=120

wiki takes you to the same place but is clean.

There are several forms available, use "edit this page" to look at the coding:

The last form is not desirable, but since you see that kind of URL in the wikipedia all the time, I thought I should show it too. I always edit them out, usually to the second style, when I find them. Ortolan88 19:53 Jul 29, 2002 (PDT)

The link to the book Kidnapped goes to the page about kidnappings.

[edit] his favorite food was beans

after spending a few years in belgim he descovered his favorite food was beans. many people were suprised at this considering the fact that it was not a traditional scottish recipe that he was trying. freom http://www.beans4stevenson.com/org45678-87978//korntv.gov

[edit] i disagree

there is no evidence to back this up... i researched that page and nothing came up. i also noticed that part of the address to korn tv ( a metal band website) there for the cite was probuble a fake. and beans are surved in many traditional scottish recipies. - annomous www.korntv.com and www.korn.com and www.scottishrecipies.com

[edit] Category:People who have altered their own name

Im not too personally invested one way or another if this Cat stays or goes, but im just curious what the rationale is to call it "God aweful".. what's wrong with it? It's pretty non offensive, a neutral observation of fact (I assume). --Stbalbach 22:19, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Never mind just read the "Category for deletion page", seems like a reasonable argument. --Stbalbach 22:22, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Biography Source

The biography recently added was taken from James Cloyd Bowman (1918) (listed in references) with copyediting. -- Stbalbach 03:05, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for expanding the article. Stevenson is one of my favourite 19th-century English novelists, alongside Dickens, Austen and Wells. It's been a great pleasure reading the bio. --Ghirla -трёп- 14:40, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, me too. I came across it while researching for The Annotated 'Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes' on Wikisource (in case you were interested!). --Stbalbach 16:52, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Can something be added about Aes Triplex?

[edit] Henry James and Vladimir Nabokov

In my edit notes I said this was mentioned in the article body, but it's not, my mistake. But this is well known common knowledge, he was friends with these people, any Stevenson biography will have it, I don't think we need to footnote every common knowledge fact. -- Stbalbach 14:16, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Heh, you got in just ahead of me. I added the tag as part of a copyedit. I'll try to source it as I have never heard it before, not that I don't believe you of course, just that the article will be stronger if this key fact relating to his importance is sourced. I'll leave it there meantime though. --Guinnog 14:18, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
Ok, I added a link to google books (great resource). -- Stbalbach 15:32, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Stevenson and Children's Literature

I certainly didn't mean to imply that Stevenson wrote only children's books. However, he did write some books that were read by children in his day, and still are today. In the same way that Kipling wrote books for children, but also wrote many volumes of short stories for adults (in his early years). The same can be said for other writers on that template--Charlotte Yonge, Thomas Hughes, George MacDonald, and Lewis Carroll--they all had varied outputs which included children's books. (OUP, for example, advertises Treasure Island, and Kidnapped/Catriona in the children's literature section of The World's Classics and Dr.J/Mr. H and the Weir of Hermiston in the regular (adult) section.)

The point of the template is to provide a larger 19th century context for someone reading Stevenson. By becoming aware of that context, that reader will likely find Stevenson even more wonderful, as anyone who has read both Coral Island (Ballantyne) and Treasure Island knows. (In the case of Treasure Island, this context is even more pertinant, since Stevenson himself mentions Kingston and Ballantyne in his introductory poem, "To the Hesistating Purchaser.")

Perhaps I could change the title of the template to: "The world of 19th century British children's literature," (although that sounds wordy). Alternately, I could put asterisks against the names of writers like Stevenson, Carroll, Kipling etc. and mention that they are not primarily children's authors. If you have any other suggestions, please let me know. Template or not, I don't think anyone who reads Stevenson, even his "children's books," (for example, anyone who works through the Scots in Kidnapped and is moved by the beauty of the writing) comes away thinking that Stevenson is a mere children's author. Look forward to hearing from you.

Sanjay Tiwari 02:12, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, I'm not a big fan of nav templates in general - that is what we have categories for - I could think of 10 templates this article could have and it would look like a mess. Templates should be used very carefully and not be giant portals that take up tons of article space. For RLS he in particular has been disparaged and disregarded from serious scholarship as a "kids author" for most of the 20th century - there is an active scholarship movement to rescue him from that stereotype and regain his status as a serious author (see the section in the article that discusses this) - this template just re-enforces his status as a kids author and turns back the clock - it also shows that Wikipedia is behind the times and not up to date with the most recent scholarship. Templates are optional and we have better more standard tools for categorizing articles. I'm not going to put it up for a Template For Deletion, or even that RLS should not be included in the template, but I do think the template should not be in this article. -- Stbalbach 15:40, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
I am the one who reverted the de-classification of Stevenson as a children's author. I never use nav templates and I don't know anything about your tempest here, or your teapot. I reverted it because it is plain silly to say that the author of A Child's Garden of Verse, Kidnapped, and Treasure Island, three of the most beloved children's books of all time, is not a children's author. No amount of "modern scholarship" will change that, and you don't increase Stevenson's reputation by downplaying his accomplishments. Best regards, Ortolan88 16:37, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure what revert your talking about, and I think you misunderstand the issue. Look, I don't care, call him a children's author, he is in proper context, there are other views to balance and keep it in context, that's how Wikipedia works. But if your going to put a giant colored banner template calling him a children's author, there is no recourse or balance. Stevenson is recognized today as a serious author in the same league as a Hemingway or Conrad and pigeonholing him as a childrens author (or genre author) is not longer considered accurate by literary scholarship. We use current academic sources at Wikipedia. -- Stbalbach 17:01, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
Are you going to huff and puff until you blow my house down? Ortolan88 17:39, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Dear Stbalbach, I'm the guy who created the nav template. OK, fair enough, I can understand that in an overly long article a template at the end might be too much, and I agree too that it might create the impression (in the absence of other templates) that Stevenson is a genre author. So, how about the following compromise. I will add the template and the Category: 19th century British children's literature to the pages of Stevenson's "children's" books: A Child's Garden of Verses, Kidnapped, Catriona, and Treasure Island. I have added a cautionary note and footnotes. How does that sound?

Sanjay Tiwari 02:13, 21 September 2006 (UTC)


Have added the template to those books, so that you can see what they look like. Sanjay Tiwari 12:06, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Ok fair enough. Thanks for the compromise, Sanjay. -- Stbalbach 14:58, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Woolf

In the part talking about how Virginia Woolf and others disapproved of Stevenson... why was this so? What did he do to make them despise him? His work is good.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 60.50.23.221 (talk • contribs) .

Nothing personal. After WWI the modernist movement began, which was defined by a rejection of the past, in particular the couple generations that came before. The modernists did a lot of experimental work. Part of being a modernist was disparaging the older authors. Interestingly, there is renewed interest such that today you can find new novels written as if they were written by someone in the 19th century - correct grammar, outlooks, vocabulary etc.. someone did Ahab's Wife recently retelling the story of Captain Ahab's wife from Moby Dick as if it was written in the 1800s. -- Stbalbach 23:29, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
Also, it is sometimes the case that mediocrity hates talent.Lestrade 03:17, 8 January 2007 (UTC)Lestrade

I removed the last sentences about 'narrow definition of literature' because it was POV with no citation. Also removed the part about his entering the 'canon.' —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.130.61.155 (talk • contribs) .

It is accurate. The Wikipedia:Lead section is just a summary of the article, there are not supposed to be footnotes or citations in the lead section - see the main article for supporting. -- Stbalbach 14:36, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] some praise

John Sutherland writes in The Guardian,

I recently edited a novel of Robert Louis Stevenson's - The Black Arrow. It's historical and regional. The Wikipedia entries for Stevenson are superb. They must, I suspect, have been done by an enthusiastic, omniscient Stevensonian - the kind of amateur scholar who used, in the past, to secrete their knowledge in columns such as Notes and Queries. Why, other than for a love of the subject, anyone would spend such a vast amount of time to prepare these entries, without any expectation of reward or name recognition, I don't know. But I'm profoundly grateful. And I cite it.

- BanyanTree 18:21, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../r/o/b/Talk%7ERobert_Louis_Stevenson_b780.html"