13). Alexander Dumas (1803-1370), author of _Monte Cristo_ and _Les Trois Mousquetaires_. Stevenson playfully calls him "the great, unblushing French thief"; all he means is that Dumas never hesitated to appropriate material wherever he found it, and work it into his romances.]

[Note 18: _The living fame of Robinson Crusoe with the discredit of Clarissa Harlowe_. A strong contrast between the romance of incident and the analytical novel. For remarks on _Clarissa_, see our Note 9 of Chapter IV above.]

[Note 19: _Byronism_. About the time Lord Byron was publishing _Childe Harold_ (1812-1818) a tremendous wave of romantic melancholy swept over all the countries of Europe. Innumerable poems and romances dealing with mysteriously-sad heroes were written in imitation of Byron; and young authors wore low, rolling collars, and tried to look depressed. See Gautier's _Histoire du Romantisme._ Now the death of Lovelace (in a duel) in Richardson's _Clarissa_, was pitched in exactly the Byronic key, though at that time Byron had not been born.... The Elizabethans were of course thoroughly romantic.]

[Note 20: _Faria_..._Dantes_. Characters in Dumas's _Monte Cristo_ (1841-5).]

[Note 21: _Lucy and Richard Feveril_. Usually spelled "Feverel." Stevenson strangely enough, was always a bad speller. The reference here is to one of Stevenson's favorite novels _The Ordeal of Richard Feverel_ (1859) by George Meredith. Stevenson's idolatrous praise of this particular scene in the novel is curious, for no greater contrast in English literary style can be found than that between Meredith's and his own. For another reference by Stevenson to the older novelist, see our Note 47 of Chapter IV above.]

[Note 22: _Robinson Crusoe is as realistic as it is romantic_. Therein lies precisely the charm of this book for boyish minds; the details are given with such candour that it seems as if they must all be true. At heart, Defoe was an intense realist, as well as the first English novelist.]

[Note 23: _The arrival of Haydn_. For a note on George Sand's novel _Consuelo_ see Note 9 of Chapter IV above.]

[Note 24: _A joy for ever_. The first line of Keats's poem _Endymion_ is "A thing of beauty is a joy forever."]

[Note 25: _The Sailor's Sweetheart_. Mr. W. Clark Russell, born in New York in 1844, has written many popular tales of the sea. His first success was _The Wreck of the Grosvenor_ (1876); _The Sailor's Sweetheart_, more properly, _A Sailor's Sweetheart_, was published in 1877.]

[Note 26: _Swiss Family Robinson_. A German story, _Der schweizerische Robinson_ (1812) by J.D. Wyss (1743-1818). This story is not so popular as it used to be.]

[Note 27: _Verne's Mysterious Island_. Jules Verne, who died at Amiens, France, in 1904, wrote an immense number of romances, which, translated into many languages, have delighted young readers all over the world. _The Mysterious Island_ is a sequel to _Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea_.]

[Note 28: _Eugene de Rastignac_. A character in Balzac's novel, Pere Goriot.]

[Note 29: _The Lady of the Lake_. This poem, published in 1810, is as Stevenson implies, not so much a poem as a rattling good story told in rime.]

[Note 30: _The Pirate_. A novel by Scott, published in 1821. It was the cause of Cooper's writing _The Pilot_. See Cooper's preface to the latter novel.]

[Note 31: _Guy Mannering_. Also by Scott. Published 1815.]

[Note 32: _Miss Braddon's idea_. Mary Elizabeth Braddon (Maxwell), born in 1837, published her first novel, _The Trail of the Serpent_, in 1860. She has written a large number of sensational works of fiction, very popular with an uncritical class of readers. Perhaps her best-known book is _Lady Audley's Secret_ (1862). It would be well for the student to refer to the scenes in _Guy Mannering_ which Stevenson calls the "_Four strong notes_."]

[Note 33: _Mrs. Todgers's idea of a wooden leg_. Mrs. Todgers is a character in Dickens's novel, _Martin Chuzzlewit_ (1843-4).]

[Note 34: _Elspeth of the Craigburnfoot_.

Robert Louis Stevenson
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