214 THE PI.ANT WORI.D 



on the title page. It was for his two grandfathers that Stevenson was 

 named " Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson," a name which he afterwards 

 modified to the more euphonious "Robert lyouis Stevenson." The 

 History of Fife and Kinross ' ' furnished him with much of his material 

 for his " Coast of Fife " in " Random Memories." Another book closely 

 associated with the Stevenson famil}^ is his uncle Alan Stevenson's 

 "Account of the Skerryvore lyighthouse, " a large, heavy quarto, with 

 the back loose. On the fly-leaf of the first volume of D'Aubigny 's ' ' His- 

 tory of the Reformation " is written in his father's hand, " Robert Lewis 

 Stevenson from his Father and Mother on his 15th birthday"; and 

 written in a bo^'ish hand in lead pencil, in the second volume, I found 

 *' C^est moi qui a fait cela, R. S." Other books recall his essaj^s and other 

 writings. August Longnon's ' ' Etude biographique sur Fraugois Villon ' ' 

 served as a basis for Stevenson's essay on Villon. Bonnemere's " Histoire 

 des Camisards " reappears in entire paragraphs, and sometimes pages, 

 of "Travels With a Donkey," and another work connected with the 

 classic journey across the Cevennes is Peyrat's " Histoire des Pasteurs 

 du Desert," the second volume of which he says his foot encountered 

 as he slipped into his sleeping-bag when "camping in the dark." 

 There are guide-books for various districts of France : " Geographic de 

 I'Allier, du Var, et de la Dordogne," and " Les Villes d'Hiver de la 

 Mediterranee, " containing descriptions of the principal winter resorts of 

 Southern France. A number of the books have Stevenson's Skerryvore 

 name-plate ; others have his visiting card pasted in them : 



Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson 



Skerryvore Savile Club 



Bournemouth. Piccadilly. 



Several of them relate to the Duke of Wellington, a life of whom 

 Stevenson contemplated writing. Others, relating to Scottish history, 

 were to serve as a source of a Romantic History of the Highlands, 

 which Stevenson had in view. Among the translations of Greek classics 

 are Homer's "Odyssey" and the "Iliad," both of which are much 

 marked ; Plato's "Apology of Socrates, the " Crito," and " Phaedo," a 

 thin black volume, which is the ' ' crib ' ' to which he refers in ' ' Vailima 

 Letters " ; and the Oxford translation of Sophocles's Tragedies. There 

 are also a few books which were presented to Stevenson by their authors. 

 The most interesting of the latter is Marcel Schwob's " Coeur Double," 

 a book dedicated to Stevenson. Written in ink in English is the follow- 

 ing inscription : ' ' To Robert Louis Stevenson this book is dedicated in 

 admiration of ' Treasure Island, ' ' Kidnapped, ' the ' Master of Ballantrae, ' 

 in the name of the new shape he has given to the romance, for the 

 sake of our dear Francis Villon. — Marcel Schwob." There are also 

 presentation copies of Gabriel Sarrazin's " Poetes Modernes de 1' Angle- 



