Essays by Robert Louis Stevenson
Virginibus Puerisque, 1881

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Virginibus Puerisque Contents

"Virginibus Puerisque i" (1876)
"Virginibus Puerisque ii" (1881)
"Virginibus Puerisque iii: On Falling in Love" (1877)
"Virginibus Puerisque iv: The Truth of Intercourse" (1879)
"Crabbed Age and Youth" (1878)
"An Apology for Idlers" (1877)
"Ordered South" (1874)
"Aes Triplex" (1878)
"El Dorado" (1878)
"The English Admirals" (1878)
"Some Portraits by Raeburn" (previously unpublished)
"Child’s Play" (1878)
"Walking Tours" (1876)
"Pan’s Pipes" (1878)
"A Plea for Gas Lamps" (1878)

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Familiar Studies of Men and Books, 1882

Familiar Studies of Men and Books Read the Virtual Book

Memories and Portraits Contents

"Preface, by Way of Criticism" (not previously published)
"Victor Hugo’s Romances" (1874)
"Some Aspects of Robert Burns" (1879)
"The Gospel According to Walt Whitman" (1878)
"Henry David Thoreau: His Character and Opinions" (1880)
"Yoshida-Torajiro" (1880)
"François Villon, Student, Poet, Housebreaker" (1877)
"Charles of Orleans" (1876)
"Samuel Pepys" (1881)
"John Knox and his Relations to Women" (1875)

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Memories and Portraits, 1887

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Memories and Portraits Contents

"The Foreigner at Home" (1882)
"Some College Memories" (1886)
"Old Mortality" (1884)
"A College Magazine" (not previously published)
"An Old Scotch Gardener" (1871)
"Pastoral" (1887)
"The Manse" (1887)
"Memoirs of an Islet" (not previously published)
"Thomas Stevenson, Civil Engineer" (1887)
"Talk and Talkers: I" (1882)
"Talk and Talkers: II" (1882)
"The Character of Dogs" (1884)
"A Penny Plain and Twopence Coloured" (1884)
"A Gossip on a Novel of Dumas’s" (not previously published)
"A Gossip on Romance" (1882)
"A Humble Remonstrance" (1884)

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Uncollected Essays

UNCOLLECTED ESSAYS, by year of publication

The following is a brief guide to first publication of RLS’s uncollected essays. While some of these essays have subsequently been published in volumes of RLS’s writings, RLS never organized these for publication in the same way that he compiled Virginibus Puerisque (1881), Familiar Studies (1882) and Memories and Portraits (1887). These essays - which are often overlooked in the RLS canon - demonstrate the huge volume of work that RLS completed in his short life. They also show his versatility as a writer, and offer a unique insight into the development of his thoughts and writing from a young man in Scotland, to the well-travelled and established author in Samoa.

Key: Edin Ed = The Edinburgh Edition; Cent Ed = Centenary Edition; Tus = Tusitala Edition; Vail Ed = Vailima Edition (see Collected Works)

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