Record Number: 30397

---

Reading Experience:

Evidence:

'My dear Charlie, I’m a rogue and should have written to you months ago; but I have been both busy and worried. As to your paper, no, it won’t do: you ask an opinion, and I am not so silly as to think you are afraid to hear it. […] Why will it not do? Well, first, it’s not well enough written; it’s off its feet here and there. […] The point is this. It’s not enough about anything. It’s in the air, like a kite. In the last resort, experience, whether about life or a man’s own mind, is the only thing worth hearing, indeed is the only thing anyone can have to tell upon his own authority. [A lengthy passage follows, urging C.R. to give up theoretical writing for the moment and concentrate on observing his own, C.R.’s, firsthand experiences and conveying his own vivid, detailed impressions of them and thoughts about them in his own words, as Stevenson himself has learned to do by painful trial and error.]

Century:

1850-1899

Date:

Between Sep 1878 and 1879

Country:

France-England-Scotland?

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

---

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:

Writer

Religion:

Uncommitted

Country of Origin:

Scotland

Country of Experience:

France-England-Scotland?

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

n/a

Additional Comments:

n/a

---

Text Being Read:

Author:

Charles Gray Robertson

Title:

n/a

Genre:

History, Geography / Travel

Form of Text:

Unknown

Publication Details

n/a

Provenance

owned

---

Source Information:

Record ID:

30397

Source:

Print

Author:

Robert Louis Stevenson

Editor:

Bradford A. Booth

Title:

Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson, April 1874-July 1879

Place of Publication:

New Haven and London

Date of Publication:

1994

Vol:

2

Page:

295-6

Additional Comments:

Letter 594, To Charles Robertson, [? Late1878/early 1879]. [? Edinburgh]. Co-editor Ernest Mehew. The foregoing material in square brackets has been added by the editors.

Citation:

Robert Louis Stevenson, Bradford A. Booth (ed.), Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson, April 1874-July 1879, (New Haven and London, 1994), 2, p. 295-6, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=30397, accessed: 25 November 2024

---

Additional Comments:

Editor’s Note 1, p.295, alluding to the “paper” in question reads: “I assume that the reference is to ‘C. Robertson’s Works’ in Letter 551, note 2 and that RLS had delayed commenting on the paper until he arrived back in Edinburgh [i.e. from France]. The handwriting fits this period.”
In Letter 551, written [early September 1878], Editors’ Note 1 to the phrase “C. Robertson’s Works” reads: “Apparently a paper by Charles Gray Robertson, son of General A.C. Robertson (Letter 730, n.5); he was later editor of the short-lived Court and Society Review.”