the individual volumes, by Lloyd Osbourne, vividly sketching his stepfather at various ages of his life from twenty-six to his death; five "ethical" papers; twenty-two pages from the Silverado diary, first published in the Vailima edition; some eighty pages of critical reviews; a play, "The Hanging Judge," first published in the Vailima edition; a story called "When the Devil Was Well"; an autobiographical fragment of twenty pages containing an important statement of his relations to Mrs. Sitwell and Sidney Colvin; "Moral Emblems"; nearly two hundred pages of new poems; half a dozen unfinished stories in "The Ebb Tide" volume; the juvenile "History of Moses," with sundry sketches; a "Protest on Behalf of Boer Independence"; Stevenson's "Companion to the Cook Book," and, above all, the letters, all of them, four volumes of them, of which more than a hundred "appear here for the first time in a popular edition."
I say this is the best possible counterblast to the undermining operations of the anti-Stevensonians. None of them, from Messrs. Hellman, Steuart and Swinnerton back to the atrabilious Henley—none of them, I firmly believe, will be able permanently to impose his destructive views upon a public which has, as now, easy access to the complete works.
I have emerged from my explorations brimming with fresh wonder as to where the anti-Stevensonians collect their impressions. What wild and savage life have these London and Edinburgh critics lived which enables them to speak of Stevenson as a physical weakling, barred from a romantic life of action because, forsooth, "he was obliged to take care of himself, to be home at night, to allow himself to be looked after"!
What lions have these critical fellows shot with a
