 Sir Leslie Stephen Licensed by Creative Commons"At this time [Stevenson] must not be thought of as a successful author. A very few of us were convinced of his genius; but with the exception of Mr Leslie Stephen, nobody of editorial status was sure of it" (Edmund William Gosse, Critical Kit-Kats [London: W. Heinemann, 1896], p 281).
Leslie Stephen (1832-1904) was an author, critic and editor who helped RLS with his literary career.
Stephen’s editorship (1871-1882) of the Cornhill Magazine meant that he was able to publish much of RLS’s early writings. He strongly believed in Stevenson’s abilities and encouraged the young author to pursue his literary ambitions.
In his Studies of a Biographer (1902), Leslie included a chapter on Stevenson discussing his literary style: “Stevenson, by whatever means, acquired not only a delicate style, but a style of his own. If it sometimes reminds one of models, it does not suggest that he is speaking in a feigned voice. I think, indeed, that this precocious preoccupation with style suggests the excess of self-consciousness which was his most obvious weakness; a daintiness which does not allow us to forget the presence of the artist. But Stevenson did not yield to other temptations which beset the lover of exquisite form. He was no ‘aesthete’ in the sense which conveys a reproach. He did not sympathise with the doctrine that an artist should wrap up himself in luxurious hedonism and cultivate indifference to active life” (Leslie Stephen, Studies of a Biographer, vol iv [London: Duckworth, 1902], pp. 215-16).
Stephen studied at Eton College and Cambridge University. During his editorship of the Cornhill Magazine, he published works not only by RLS, but also by Thomas Hardy, W.E. Norris, James Payn and Henry James. He contributed to periodicals like the Saturday Review, Fraser, Macmillan, and The Fortnightly. He also wrote philosophical texts and literary criticism. From 1885- 1891 he was the first editor of the Dictionary of National Biography. He was knighted in 1902.
In his personal life, Stephen was an avid mountaineer. He married Julia Prinsep Jackson (1846-1895) and they had four children, including the novelist Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) and the painter Vanessa Bell (1879-1961).
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