Prince Otto

by Robert Louis Stevenson

Overview

This is the extended annotated edition including a detailed biographical primer on the life and works of the author. Stevenson's second longer work of fiction is the greatest imaginable jump from the buccaneering story of Treasure Island with which he first came before a large public. Prince Otto is difficult to classify; it is not, as R. L. S. wrote, ' a romance, nor yet a comedy, nor yet a romantic comedy, but a kind of preparation of some of the elements of all these in a glass jar.' It is, more than anything else, a piece of Stevenson's paradoxical philosophy wrought into a story which, for one thing, has a very slender interest and, for another, is all the while very near to being overwhelmed by the rich beauty of its writing. Stevenson's theme seems to be: Let us have done with this artificial life of courts which chokes a man's healthy tastes, and is a breeding ground for vanity and scandal. Such is the interpretation which the story bears from his declaration to Henley that ' the romance lies precisely in the freeing of two spirits from these court intrigues.' The delicacy with which this motive is woven into the picture of the affairs of Otto and his princess may justify the opinion, often expressed, that the book is the touchstone for the true Stevensonian.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783849642532
Publisher:	Jazzybee Verlag
Publication date:	01/21/2014
Sold by:	Bookwire
Format:	eBook
Pages:	176
File size:	316 KB

About the Author

Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson (13 November 1850 - 3 December 1894) was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer. His most famous works are Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
A literary celebrity during his lifetime, Stevenson now ranks among the 26 most translated authors in the world. His works have been admired by many other writers, including Jorge Luis Borges, Ernest Hemingway, Rudyard Kipling, Marcel Schwob, Vladimir Nabokov, J. M. Barrie, and G. K. Chesterton, who said of him that he "seemed to pick the right word up on the point of his pen, like a man playing spillikins."
-wikipedia

Date of Birth:

November 13, 1850

Date of Death:

December 3, 1894

Place of Birth:

Edinburgh, Scotland

Place of Death:

Vailima, Samoa

Education:

Edinburgh University, 1875