Robert Stevenson: 1201 books

L’avventura bussa alla porta della locanda dove lavora il giovane Jim Hawkins sotto le spoglie del "capitano", un marinaio irascibile e malconcio, che nasconde un oscuro segreto. Quando quest’uomo misterioso muore, nel suo baule il ragazzo scopre la mappa di un’isola dove sembra che...

La tragedia di Jekyll/Hyde verte su un senso di ineluttabile destino che guida il male, insito nell'uomo, alla distruzione. Jekyll è cosciente del lato meschino e ripugnante della sua personalità, e dell'impossibilità di vincere e domare le tentazioni che questo lato crudele fa insorgere. Ma l'esperimento...

Il Diamante del Rajah, tratto dalla raccolta «New Arabian Nights», è basato sull'antico espediente letterario del "manoscritto ritrovato": l'autore finge infatti di trascrivere la storia da un anonimo autore arabo, calando così la narrazione in una cornice misteriosa ed esotica. Ne è...

Dopo la morte del padre nel 1751, David Balfour, un giovane ragazzo scozzese, parte alla ricerca della sua eredità. Parte da Essendean, il villaggio dove ha sempre vissuto, grazie all'aiuto di Mr. Campbell, il pastore del suo villaggio, per cercare suo zio Ebeneezer Balfour e per reclamare il suo nome: David Balfour di Shaws.

My dear Colvin,—This is a hard and interesting and beautiful life that we lead now. Our place is in a deep cleft of Vaea Mountain, some six hundred feet above the sea, embowered in forest, which is our strangling enemy, and which we combat with axes and dollars. I went crazy over outdoor work, and...

The ancient and famous metropolis of the North sits overlooking a windy estuary from the slope and summit of three hills. No situation could be more commanding for the head city of a kingdom; none better chosen for noble prospects. From her tall precipice and terraced gardens she looks far and wide...

For nearly ten years my health had been declining; and for some while before I set forth upon my voyage, I believed I was come to the afterpiece of life, and had only the nurse and undertaker to expect. It was suggested that I should try the South Seas; and I was not unwilling to visit like a ghost,...

The problem of education is twofold: first to know, and then to utter. Every one who lives any semblance of an inner life thinks more nobly and profoundly than he speaks; and the best of teachers can impart only broken images of the truth which they perceive. Speech which goes from one to another...

Two recent books [1] one by Mr. Grant White on England, one on France by the diabolically clever Mr. Hillebrand, may well have set people thinking on the divisions of races and nations. Such thoughts should arise with particular congruity and force to inhabitants of that United Kingdom, peopled from...

PREFACE BY WAY OF CRITICISM. These studies are collected from the monthly press. One appeared in the New Quarterly, one in Macmillan’s, and the rest in the Cornhill Magazine. To the Cornhill I owe a double debt of thanks; first, that I was received there in the very best society, and under...

III—THE CANOE SPEAKS On the great streams the ships may go About men’s business to and fro. But I, the egg-shell pinnace, sleep On crystal waters ankle-deep: I, whose diminutive design, Of sweeter cedar, pithier pine, Is fashioned on so frail a mould, A hand may launch, a hand withhold: I,...

John Varey Nicholson was stupid; yet, stupider men than he are now sprawling in Parliament, and lauding themselves as the authors of their own distinction. He was of a fat habit, even from boyhood, and inclined to a cheerful and cursory reading of the face of life; and possibly this attitude of mind...

You shall seek in vain upon the map of Europe for the bygone state of Grünewald. An independent principality, an infinitesimal member of the German Empire, she played, for several centuries, her part in the discord of Europe; and, at last, in the ripeness of time and at the spiriting of several bald...

PRAYER I ask good things that I detest, With speeches fair; Heed not, I pray Thee, Lord, my breast, But hear my prayer. I say ill things I would not say— Things unaware: Regard my breast, Lord, in Thy day, And not my prayer. My heart is evil in Thy sight: My good thoughts flee: O...