Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)
More about Robert Louis Stevenson here: http://www.robert-louis-stevenson.org/
Also, Menikoff's Narrating Scotland: The Imagination of Robert Louis Stevenson (2005) is an interesting read.
RLS : careful documentary research, eyewitness account and contemporary source material, the entwining of history and culture, Scottish history, English/Scottish relations, had historical and legal training, language and dialect.
RLS began writing a history of Scotland from the Union to the present in the 1880s. He managed to get a nomination as a candidate for the chair in constitutional law and history for himself but did not get the post despite good recommendations.
A Selection of Historical (Fiction) works:
Kidnapped (1886)
Catriona (USA title David Balfour) (1893) sequel to Kidnapped
The Black Arrow: A Tale of Two Roses (1888) - I find this text really interesting, its atypical of historical fiction of the time but we do see instead themes common to Stevenson's work: treachery, trust, duplicity, ideas about the self, a preoccupation with male relationships and father figures, a blurring of the line between 'right' and 'wrong' , 'good' and 'bad'.
The Master of Ballantrae - A Winter's Tale (1889)
A Footnote to History: Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa (1892)
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