Friday, August 20, 2021

"R.L.S. and the Detective"

HERE'S AN ANECDOTE about Robert Louis Stevenson, still regarded as one of the best writers in English. Although he produced some crime fiction (yes, pirates are a criminal organization), we learn here that while he never wanted to commit to a formal detective story, he was capable of reasoning like a detective fiction author:

~ From T. P.'s Weekly, June 23, 1905 (HERE) ~
Resource:
- A few years ago we highlighted a thesis about R.L.S.'s "Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (HERE).

2 comments:

  1. It's such a pity that most people only know Stevenson from his really famous books like Kidnapped and Jekyll and Hyde. He really was a wonderful writer. I'm very fond of his short story cycle The Suicide Club.

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    Replies
    1. I have yet to tackle THE SUICIDE CLUB. As with anything by Wodehouse, all attempts to replicate the charms of THE SUICIDE CLUB in TV and movies have almost certainly been uneven affairs. The IMDb lists 300 screen credits for R.L.S., some of them not in English:

      https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0829044/?ref_=tt_ov_wr

      As you can see from the list, the earliest known cinema version of THE SUICIDE CLUB dates from 1909; next comes one in 1914, then a German talkie from 1932, then a glossy MGM production in 1936, first hitting television in 1952, and so on.

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