Record Number: 17655

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Reading Experience:

Evidence:

'And yet I am going to send you a book that was written altogether in the spirit of that place. I send it however, because it is just one of those specimens of consummate polished perfection in that style, that I think you would do best to read at present: I mean Baudelaire?s "Petits Poemes". On second thoughts, I will not send it until I hear from you, in case you have it already. If you have it not, I shall send you mine, it has unfortunately been subjected to the outrages of an amateur expurgator, but the most of it is there, and I think you would do well to study it.'

Century:

1850-1899

Date:

Until: 31 Oct 1874

Country:

unknown

Time

n/a

Place:

n/a

Type of Experience
(Reader):
 

silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

Type of Experience
(Listener):
 

solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

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Reader / Listener / Reading Group:

Reader:

Robert Louis Stevenson

Age:

Adult (18-100+)

Gender:

Male

Date of Birth:

13 Nov 1850

Socio-Economic Group:

Professional / academic / merchant / farmer

Occupation:

Aspiring writer and intermittent law student

Religion:

Church of Scotland (wavering)

Country of Origin:

Scotland

Country of Experience:

unknown

Listeners present if any:
e.g family, servants, friends

n/a

Additional Comments:

n/a

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Text Being Read:

Author:

Charles Baudelaire

Title:

Petits poemes en prose

Genre:

Poetry, Prose poems.

Form of Text:

Print: Book

Publication Details

Vol. 4 of the "Oeuvres Completes" 1869

Provenance

owned

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Source Information:

Record ID:

17655

Source:

Print

Author:

Robert Louis Stevenson

Editor:

Bradford A. Booth

Title:

The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson, April 1874-July 1879

Place of Publication:

New Haven and London

Date of Publication:

1994

Vol:

2

Page:

63

Additional Comments:

Letter 323, To Katharine de Mattos, [? October 1874]. Co-editor Ernest Mehew. The date in square brackets has been added by the editors.

Citation:

Robert Louis Stevenson, Bradford A. Booth (ed.), The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson, April 1874-July 1879, (New Haven and London, 1994), 2, p. 63, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=17655, accessed: 22 November 2024

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Additional Comments:

The ?place? RLS refers to has been identified earlier in the same letter (see ID=17649) as the countryside of ?the village of Hope-deferred? and of ?the river of the Shadow of Suicide?. Note 1 to p.63 reads: ?RLS?s copy (Vol. 4 of the "Oeuvres Compl?tes" 1869) is at Yale [= Yale University Library, (Beinecke Library)]. Pages 133-8 have been cut out. Katharine gave the book to Bob [Stevenson, her brother, RLS?s cousin], who refers to it in an undated letter of this period.? The 1869 edition was the first posthumous collection of Baudelaire?s works. Later, editors of the prose poems reverted to the more expressive working title sometimes used by Baudelaire when they were being published in periodicals: [italics] Le Spleen de Paris [end italics].