Reading Primary Sources

Reading Primary Sources
Author: Miriam Dobson
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 463
Release: 2008-09-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 1134086768

How does the historian approach primary sources? How do interpretations differ? How can they be used to write history? Reading Primary Sources goes a long way to providing answers for these questions. In the first part of this unique volume, the chapters give an overview of both traditional and new methodological approaches to the use of sources, analyzing the way that these have changed over time. The second part gives an overview of twelve different types of written sources, including letters, opinion polls, surveillance reports, diaries, novels, newspapers, and dreams, taking into account the huge expansion in the range of written primary sources used by historians over the last thirty years. This book is an up-to-date introduction into the historical context of these different genres, the ways they should be read, the possible insights and results these sources offer and the pitfalls of their interpretation. All of the chapters push the reader beyond a conventional understanding of source texts as mere "reflections" of a given reality, instead fostering an understanding of how each of the various genres has to be seen as a medium in its own right. Taking examples of sources from around the globe, and also including a student-friendly further reading section, this is the perfect companion for every student of history who wants to engage with sources.

Collected Poems of Robert Louis Stevenson

Collected Poems of Robert Louis Stevenson
Author: Stevenson R. L. Stevenson
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Total Pages: 672
Release: 2019-08-07
Genre: Great Britain
ISBN: 1474472877

At last - a complete new edition of the poetry of Robert Louis Stevenson.During his lifetime Stevenson published A Child's Garden of Verses (1885), Penny Whistles, Underwoods (1887) and Ballads (1890). There were also various private press adventures in poetry with his stepson Lloyd Osbourne, and the posthumous Songs of Travel (1895), and New Poems (1918). This new edition contains these collections and also some of Stevenson's printed and manuscript poems that have never been published in any collection. The edition also identifies and restores various poems assembled by Stevenson in his Notebooks, many of which were mutilated by members of The Boston Bibliophile Society.The editor, Roger Lewis, has carefully studied Stevenson's manuscripts and letters, identifying many variants in individual poems and in orders of his collections, as well as in the editorial procedures of a succession of RLS's literary associates who claimed to be fulfilling his intentions or acting on his authority.The ordering of this edition will follow Stevenson's own final arrangement over unauthorised editorial rearrangments or strict considerations of chronology. Complete and accurate dates of composition and publication of individual poems and of collections are given wherever possible.Appendices include bibliographical description and location for manuscript and printed sources of all poems in the edition; 'poems in process' - how Stevenson sketched and revised during composition; notebooks - bibliographical history and significance; chronology and ordonnance of poetic units. There are also explanatory and textual notes. Scots poems are glossed and annotated using The Concise Scots Dictionary and web resources of the SNDA.A substantial introduction covers the publishing histories of individual volumes and literary influences, placing emphasis on Stevenson as a Scottish poet and arguing for his best verse to be considered

The Biography Book

The Biography Book
Author: Daniel S. Burt
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 636
Release: 2001-02-28
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0313017263

From Marilyn to Mussolini, people captivate people. A&E's Biography, best-selling autobiographies, and biographical novels testify to the popularity of the genre. But where does one begin? Collected here are descriptions and evaluations of over 10,000 biographical works, including books of fact and fiction, biographies for young readers, and documentaries and movies, all based on the lives of over 500 historical figures from scientists and writers, to political and military leaders, to artists and musicians. Each entry includes a brief profile, autobiographical and primary sources, and recommended works. Short reviews describe the pertinent biographical works and offer insight into the qualities and special features of each title, helping readers to find the best biographical material available on hundreds of fascinating individuals.

Robert Louis Stevenson and theories of reading

Robert Louis Stevenson and theories of reading
Author: Glenda Norquay
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2024-07-30
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1526185970

Robert Louis Stevenson and theories of reading is both an exceptionally well researched study of the novelist, and well as an intriguing exploration of 'literary consumption'. Glenda Norquay presents fresh interpretations of Stevenson’s literary essays, of major works including The Master of Ballantrae, and some of his more neglected fiction such as St Ives and The Wrecker, as well as illuminating our understanding of his role within debates over popular fiction, romance and reading pleasure. She offers an unusual combination of literary history and reception theory and argues that Stevenson both exemplified tensions within the literary market of his time and anticipated later developments in reading theory. By combining the study of nineteenth-century cultural politics with detailed analysis of his Scottish Calvinism, Stevenson is reassessed as both a Victorian and Scottish writer. The book is aimed at scholars, postgraduates and undergraduates with an interest in the nineteenth-century literary marketplace, in Scottish culture, and in reading /reception theory as well as Stevenson enthusiasts.

Kidnapped & Catriona

Kidnapped & Catriona
Author: Robert Louis Stevenson
Publisher: Birlinn
Total Pages: 562
Release: 2013-06-24
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0857907085

In "Kidnapped" (1886) and later fiction such as "The Master of Ballantrae" (1888), Stevenson examined some of the extreme and contrary currents of Scotland's past, often projecting a dualism of both personality and belief. This dualism is most famous in "Kidnapped", whose two central characters are David Balfour, a Lowland Whig, and Alan Breck Stewart, a Highland Jacobite. The novel revolves around their friendship and their differences, suggesting a metaphor for Scotland itself. Stevenson wrote the sequel "Catriona" with the title David Balfour, but during serialisation in England the public became confused, thinking it might be a reprint of "Kidnapped". At publisher Cassell's request, the title was changed to "Catriona", after Balfour's daughter.

Robert Louis Stevenson and the Pictorial Text

Robert Louis Stevenson and the Pictorial Text
Author: Richard J. Hill
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 234
Release: 2016-11-03
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1317062175

Robert Louis Stevenson and the Pictorial Text explores the genesis, production and the critical appreciation of the illustrations to the fiction of Robert Louis Stevenson. Stevenson is one of the most copied and interpreted authors of the late nineteenth century, especially his novels Treasure Island and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. These interpretations began with the illustration of his texts in their early editions, often with Stevenson’s express consent, and this book traces Stevenson’s understanding and critical responses to the artists employed to illustrate his texts. In doing so, it attempts to position Stevenson as an important thinker and writer on the subject of illustrated literature, and on the marriage of literature and visual arts, at a moment preceding the dawn of cinema, and the rejection of such popular tropes by modernist writers of the early twentieth century.

Graceful Reading

Graceful Reading
Author: Michael Davies
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 410
Release: 2002-07-04
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0199242402

Graceful Reading offers a new way of understanding Bunyan's theology and his narrative art, examining and reassessing the complex and interdependent relationship between them. Michael Davies begins by proposing that Bunyan's theology is far from obsessed with the forbidding Calvinist doctrine of predestination and its corollary tendency towards painful introspection. Bunyan's is, rather, a comfortable doctrine, in which the believer is encouraged to accept salvation throughthe far more assuring terms of Bunyan's covenant theology - those of faith and grace. The book then reassesses how Bunyan's narrative style is informed by this theology. Works such as Grace Abounding and The Pilgrim's Progress reveal a profound sensitivity to narrative forms and reading practices, as theyaim to inculcate in their readers a self-consciousness about reading itself which is instrumental in the very process of spiritual instruction, in seeing 'things unseen'. This is a study, therefore, which asserts a radically different way of reading of Bunyan's writings, both through the terms of seventeenth-century covenant theology, and through some distinctly 'postmodernist' ideas about narrative practice.

Selected Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson

Selected Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson
Author: Robert Louis Stevenson
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 644
Release: 2001-01-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780300091243

Millions of readers throughout the world continue to enjoy Treasure Island, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, A Child's Garden of Verses, and other books by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894). A celebrated author in many different fields of literature, Stevenson is also recognized as a highly engaging and prolific correspondent: he penned over 2,800 letters, which are contained in eight critically acclaimed volumes published by Yale University Press. In this book, 317 of Stevenson's most interesting and revealing letters represent each stage of his mature life. With a linking narrative and full annotation, Ernest Mehew sets the letters in the context of Stevenson's remarkable life. Beginning with the days of his troubled youth in Edinburgh, Stevenson's letters go on to tell of his love for Frances Sitwell, a beautiful, older married woman; a reckless journey to California in pursuit of Fanny Osbourne, the woman who became his wife; their worldwide but vain search for a healthy place to live; and a period of adventure in the South Seas, where Stevenson wrote some of his best work and became passionately involved in Samoan life. The letters show the author's zest for living despite daunting illnesses, his struggles with his own writing, his literary tastes, and his affection for his friends. Stevenson writes in many moods, ranging from playful and witty to deeply serious. Better than any biography ever could, these letters in Stevenson's own words tell the real story of his life.