Journal of Stevenson Studies Volume 7

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Journal of Stevenson Studies Volume 7 Journal of Stevenson Studies Volume 7 Stevenson7.indb 1 08/09/2010 16:53 ii Journal of Stevenson Studies Stevenson7.indb 2 08/09/2010 16:53 Journal of Stevenson Studies iii Editors Professor Linda Dryden Professor Emeritus Centre for Literature and Roderick Watson Writing English Studies School of Arts and Creative University of Stirling Industries Stirling Napier University FK9 4LA Craighouse Scotland Edinburgh Tel: 01786 475971 EH10 5LG Email: [email protected] Scotland Tel: 0131 455 6128 Email: [email protected] Contributions to volume 8 are warmly invited and should be sent to either of the editors listed above. The text should be submitted in MS WORD files in MHRA format. All contributions are subject to review by members of the Editorial Board. Published by The Centre for Scottish Studies University of Stirling © The contributors 2010 ISSN: 1744-3857 Printed and bound in the UK by Antony Rowe Ltd. Chippenhan, Wiltshire. Stevenson7.indb 3 08/09/2010 16:53 iv Journal of Stevenson Studies Editorial Board Professor Richard Ambrosini Professor Gordon Hirsch Universita’ di Roma Tre Department of English Rome University of Minnesota Professor Stephen Arata Professor Katherine Linehan School of English Department of English University of Virginia Oberlin College Dr Hilary Beattie Ohio Department of Psychiatry Professor Barry Menikoff Columbia University Department of English Professor Oliver Buckton University of Hawaii at School of English Manoa Florida Atlantic University Professor Glenda Norquay Dr Jenni Calder Department of English and National Museum of Scotland Cultural History Liverpool John Moores Professor Linda Dryden University School of Arts and Creative Industries Professor Marshall Walker Edinburgh Napier University Department of English The University of Waikato Professor Richard Dury University of Bergamo Professor Roderick Watson (Consultant Editor) Department of English Studies Dr Penny Fielding University of Stirling Department of English University of Edinburgh Stevenson7.indb 4 08/09/2010 16:53 Journal of Stevenson Studies v Contents Editorial .................................................................................... 1 Jean Taylor Vailima ......................................................................................4 David Annwn ‘The Gnome’s Lighted Scrolls’: consumerism and pre-cinematic visual technologies in The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde .......................................9 Dana Fore Snatching identity: ‘passing’ and disabled monstrosity in Stevenson’s Jekyll and Hyde and ‘The Body Snatcher’ .........33 Sara Wasson Olalla’s legacy: Twentieth-century vampire fiction and genetic previvorship ........................................................55 Jeremy Lim Calvinism and forms of storytelling: Mackellar’s parental voice in The Master of Ballantrae ..........................83 Glenda Norquay ‘Squandering names’: place, nomenclature and cultural identity .................................................................... 107 Uncollected Stevenson Roger G. Swearingen ‘On the Art of Literature’ (1880) – a reading text .................131 Caroline A. Howitt Stevenson and Economic Scandal: ‘Our City Men No. 1 – A Salt-water Financier’ .................... 143 Reviews ................................................................................157 Contributors ...................................................................... 163 JSS Notes ............................................................................ 169 Stevenson7.indb 5 08/09/2010 16:53 vi Journal of Stevenson Studies Stevenson7.indb 6 08/09/2010 16:53 Journal of Stevenson Studies 1 Editorial The essays in this, the seventh volume of the Journal of Stevenson Studies, demonstrate how different fields of discourse can bring new insights to bear on Stevenson studies. David Annwyn’s piece on pre-cinematic visual technologies and Dana Fore’s engage- ment with how we relate to physical disablement each offer fresh perspectives on Jekyll and Hyde, while Sara Wasson’s reflec- tions on vampirism and the Gothic are discussed in the light of genetic and medical theory both past and present. Glenda Norquay’s essay on nomenclature and identity develops insights into how place and place-names resonate with ‘excess significa- tion’ for Stevenson, while Jeremy Lim’s study of The Master of Ballantrae builds on some of Professor Norquay’s own insights to say still more on the echoes of Calvinism to be found in the Scottish author’s work and thought. The poems that open this issue come from a creative writing workshop for adult students tutored by Stephanie Green. Under the remit of a ‘Sense of Place: Edinburgh’ the class visited, among other venues, the National Museum of Scotland, The Royal College of Surgeons’ Museum and the Phoebe Traquair Mansfield Centre. But it was the photographs in the RLS collection at the Writers’ Museum, and one print in particular, that inspired Jean Taylor’s ‘Vailima’ sequence. Our thanks are due to Jean Taylor and also to the Writers’ Museum, Edinburgh Museums & Galleries for permission to reproduce the photograph in ques- tion. This and many other prints from the collection can also be accessed on the RLS website. This editorial is written in the afterglow of a very success- ful conference on ‘Locating Stevenson’ which saw the biennial event return to the University of Stirling ten years after the first conference was held on ‘Stevenson, Scotland and Samoa’. With plenary speakers Stuart Kelly and James Robertson, 50 papers and 76 participants this was a full programme and the editors Stevenson7.indb 1 08/09/2010 16:53 2 Journal of Stevenson Studies are requesting submissions from the conference for publication in volume 8 of the Journal in 2011. Submissions should be in WORD files, in MHRA format (with endnotes, please, rather than footnotes) and we require material to arrive with us by 1st March 2011. As always, every essay received will be sent for review by members of the editorial board. In the event that we cannot find space for papers that have been accepted, we may ask if publication in the next volume of the Journal would be acceptable to the author. The Stirling conference ended with a discussion about where the next one should be held in !2012, with suggestions made for Samoa, California and France. Perhaps the proposal for a South Pacific venue had more glamour than feasibility, but in any case no clear commitment was made in the end, pending further can- vassing and further consultation between individuals and their institutions. Potentially interested scholars or institutions are strongly encouraged to get in touch with the Journal’s editors if they wish to host this popular and productive event, and we will be glad to act as a clearing house and a source of advice to organisers in the preliminary stages. This volume introduces a new series of occasional submis- sions under the running title ‘Uncollected Stevenson’, which will feature previously uncollected notes, essays or fragments from Stevenson’s output, many of which may eventually appear between the covers of the New Edinburgh Edition. One contribu- tion per issue will probably be the norm, according to its length, but we are pleased to launch the project with two submissions. ‘On the Art of Literature’ is introduced by Roger Swearingen and edited by himself and Richard Dury. It is a fascinating draft outline of a book proposal, from one of Stevenson’s notebooks, never published, but clearly relevant to the aesthetic theories put forward in ‘A Gossip on Romance’ and ‘A Note on Realism’ from the early 1880s. Swearingen, currently writing a full- length biography of Stevenson for Faber and Faber, needs no Stevenson7.indb 2 08/09/2010 16:53 Journal of Stevenson Studies 3 introduction as a major Stevenson scholar and bibliographer, and Dury is, of course, our consulting colleague on the Journal and one of the series editors for the New Edinburgh Edition. Caroline Howitt is a much younger scholar working on a thesis on ‘Aspects of Romance in the Prose of Robert Louis Stevenson’ at the University of St Andrews, and she introduces a Stevenson article from London in 1877, noting that the financial scandal he describes may echo those in recent years. In fact Stevenson’s writing for this short-lived periodical shows a continuing inter- est in economics and the stock market —a theme that would certainly come to feature again in his late novel The Wrecker that wonderful black comedy of capitalism. Finally, you may note with relief that subscriptions for the Journal can now be taken in Pounds Sterling, Euros, US or Canadian dollars, and other currencies by agreement. Roderick Watson and Linda Dryden Stevenson7.indb 3 08/09/2010 16:53 4 Journal of Stevenson Studies Vailima Three poems on the photograph ‘Stevenson with his wife, step-daughter and mother, Sydney 1893’ Jean Taylor 1. Margaret How did I fetch up here in my black bombazine my stiff white lace? Heat drips from the palm trees, drizzles down my northern spine. He has made me a wanderer, my Louis – always tuppence-coloured, never penny-plain. Stevenson7.indb 4 08/09/2010 16:53 Journal of Stevenson Studies 5 See where he stretches his long bones along the rattan couch still just a child, playing with his pen and paper. His stories remind me of that brass kaleidoscope. He spins their pretty coloured pictures into pirates, wicked uncles, treasures and tontines. How did I fetch up here? The vegetation is excessive. Burr grass sprawls across the yard. Lianas
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