The most authoritative, comprehensive, perceptive biography of R. L. Stevenson to date, using for the first time his collected correspondence (unavailable to previous writers). The short life of Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-94) was as adventurous as almost anything in his fiction: his travels, illness, struggles to become a writer, relationships with his volatile wife and stepfamily, friendships and quarrels have fascinated readers for over a century. In his time he was both engineer and aesthete, dutiful son and reckless lover, Scotsman and South Sea Islander, Covenanter and atheist. Stevenson's books, including Treasure Island, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Kidnapped, have achieved world fame; others - The Master of Ballantrae, A Child's Garden of Verses, Travels with a Donkey - remain all-time favourites. His unique gift for storytelling and dramatic characterisation has meant that that some of his characters live in the consciousness even of those who have never read his work: Long John Silver, with his wooden leg and his parrot, is more real to most people than any historical pirate, while 'Jekyll and Hyde' has become a universally recognised term for a split personality. No biography has yet done justice to the complex, brilliant and troubled man who was responsible for so many remarkable creations. His interest in psychology, genetics, technology and feminism anticipated the concerns of the next century, while his experiments in narrative technique inspired post-modern innovators such as Borges and Nabokov. Stevenson's recently collected correspondence shows him to have been the least 'Victorian' of Victorian writers, a man of humour, resilience and strongly unconventional views. With access to this and much previously unpublished material, Claire Harman, the acclaimed biographer of Sylvia Townsend Warner and Fanny Burney, has written the most authoritative, comprehensive and perceptive portrait of 'RLS' to date.

Robert Louis Stevenson : A Biography

Literature & Fiction

Claire Harman

History & Criticism

HARPER/COLLINS

This beautifully produced and impressively researched historical account of a celebrated Victorian murder with a literary twist reads like a thriller. I devoured it in one sitting, and was at once enthralled and chilled. Highly recommended!' Alison Weir Early in the morning of 6 May 1840, on an ultra-respectable Mayfair street, a footman answered the door to a panic-stricken maid from a nearby house. Her elderly master, Lord William Russell, was lying in bed with his throat cut so deeply that the head was almost severed. The whole of London, from monarch to street urchins, was gripped by the gory details of the Russell murder, but behind it was another story, a work of fiction, and a fierce debate about censorship and morality. Several of the key literary figures of the day, including Dickens and Thackeray, were drawn into the controversy, and when Lord William's murderer claimed to having been inspired by the season's most sensational novel, it seemed that a great deal more was on trial than anyone could have guessed.Bringing together much previously unpublished material from a wide range of sources, Claire Harman reveals the story of the notorious Russell murder case and its fascinating connections with the writers and literary culture of the day. Gripping and eye-opening, Murder by the Book is the untold true story of a surprisingly literary crime.'A fascinating portrait of Victorian London' Observer'A brilliant piece of literary detective work' Evening Standard One of the Guardian's '50 Biggest Books of Autumn 2018'

Murder By The Book

History

Europe

VIKING

On the 200th anniversary of Charlotte Bronts birth Penguin is publishing the definitive biography of this extraordinary novelist by acclaimed literary biographer Claire Harman Charlotte Bronts life contained all the drama and tragedy of the great Gothic novels it inspired She was raised motherless on remote Yorkshire moors and sent away to brutally strict boarding school at a young age She watched helpless growing up as one by one her five beloved siblings sickened and died by the end of her short life she was the only child of the Bront clan remaining And most fascinating and tragic of all throughout her adult life she was haunted by a great and unrequited love a love that tortured Charlotte but also inspired some of the most moving intense and revolutionary novels ever written in the English language Charlotte was a literary visionary a feminist trailblazer and the driving force behind the whole Bront family She encouraged her sister Emily to publish Wuthering Heights when noone else

Charlotte Brontë

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

Penguin??Books

Charlotte Bronte: A Life

Jane's Fame: How Austen Conquered the World

Text Publishing

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Books by Claire Harman