Empire, Exile and the Exotic: Studies on Robert Louis Stevenson, Joseph Conrad and the Sea

Robert Louis Stevenson and Joseph Conrad are two very different writers. Stevenson found an ever-increasing audience with his poetry and early travelogues, as well as Treasure Island, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and his Scottish romances. Conrad first led a life at sea and began his writing career with tales and novels set in the Far East, Africa, South America and later, in Europe. But these two writers also had a lot in common. Their experiences with the British empire, exile and the exotic differed, but their assessments of these experiences demonstrate an astonishing amount of convergence. This collection of essays is the result of a long-term research interest which aimed at bringing these two authors more closely together in literary and cultural criticism. In these texts, most of which were separately published over the past two decades, Stevenson and Conrad’s substantial criticisms of colonial relations are contrasted with their loves for the sea, its attractions and challenges. The volume also includes essays on the sea as a cultural space and is rounded off by a reading of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, which synthesises topics dealt with earlier concerning the Victorian fin de siècle