The (Illustrated) Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson
This blog aims to publish an illustrated selection of the Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson now out-of-copyright, chiefly the 1899 and 1911 editions edited by Sir Sidney Colvin (Robert Louis Stevenson to His Family and Friends. London-New York, Methuen-Scribner’s. 1899, 4 vols.; The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson. A New Edition, London-New York, Methuen-Scribner’s, 4 vols.).
My name is Mafalda Cipollone and I live in Perugia, Italy. I took a degree in Lettere e Filosofia at Perugia University with a thesis in Archaeology. From 1986 to 2019 I worked at the Museo Archeologico (where I looked after stored materials, collaborated on exhibitions and assisted students and scholars visiting our museum), and from 2019 to 2021 (when I retired) at the Soprintendenza Archeologia Belle Arti e Paesaggio dell’Umbria. In 2008 I also obtained a diploma in “Archival and Paleographic Science”, and as a result I got used to reading and transcribing old handwriting.
I first met Robert Louis Stevenson when I was a little girl: I read the Italian translation of Treasure Island, but I did’t like it very much. Then I discovered that my father had a book of Racconti e favole – that made me change my mind… Once grown-up, I read many other works and loved them more and more. In 2005 I came across the first edition of RLS’s Letters, on the Internet, and I began to translate them into Italian, just for pleasure. The author’s personality revealed itself more and more and I found that it was quite different from the usually outlined picture. Thanks to the Editors of the New Edinburgh Edition of the Collected Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (http://edrls.wordpress.com/) and to the trust (and patience) of Prof. Richard Dury, I joined the volunteer team transcribing RLS’s manuscripts for the New Edition. Transcription is a sort of voyage inside the author, his psyche, his time, his culture, and — most fascinating — his human nature. A sort of voyage in the past.
The idea of supplying the Letters with a set of pictures taken from the Internet comes from another blog of mine, now over (http://stevensonyyo.wordpress.com/), where I started to translate into Italian some of Stevenson’s letters.
In this new English blog I’m accompanying each selected letter with a complement of pictures, most from RLS’s time, enabling the reader to make a journey through time and places thanks to the resources to be found on the web.
Bon voyage!
Mafalda
mafaldacipollone@yahoo.it
mafalda.cipollone@gmail.com
P.S. – For full information about RLS’s life, works etc., please visit the RLS website: http://www.robert-louis-stevenson.org/
Here you can also read the virtual books of the Letters: http://www.robert-louis-stevenson.org/letters
The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson 
I just stumbled across your blog today and am very excited! I adore R.L.S.’s letter in particular and love the idea of illustrating them with historic images. 🙂 I’m actually currently trying to put together a short film about R.L.S.’s time in San Francisco. If you have a chance, please check it out here: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/death-is-no-bad-friend/x/1089930 I very much look forward to following your blog! Best regards, G. E.
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Thanks, G.E.! I’m following your blog and wish you all the best for your project about RLS.
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Dear Mafalda,
I came across your fantastic blog today after reading some of the letters Stevenson wrote to Colvin from Samoa in 1891. As with so many of his writings, I had a hard time putting them down again. To me Stevenson is and will always be a very dear friend from the world of literature. Thank you for putting so much effort into bringing his life and times even closer to me.
Best regards,
Rohland
PS. I agree with you that ‘Treasure Island’ is somewhat overrated. His later fiction is much better. Seems that Stevenson aged well, like good wine. To think what he could have given the world if he had lived longer. But then the question is: would he have written at all without the illness that shortened his life? Puzzling indeed …
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In 1943, the Italian author and translator Aldo Camerino (aka Marco Lombardi) introduced his translation of RLS’s Fables with these words: “Stevenson’s lyrical gifts are what makes of him a great teller; the ability, from time to time, to throw himself into short or long and more or less important stories, always with that not juvenile but exquisitely infant enthusiasm, which has in its service one of the finest authors we can imagine; which we always need actually to image a little (as all the true artists, of which we warmly become collaborators)”.
Thank you Rholand!
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P.S.: I apologise for my translation of Aldo Camerino’s words… it was a very twisted period and I did my best!
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Can you please remove the image from Robert L. Stevenson room in Samoa which is exclusive from Got2Globe.com – as a G2G watermark in the left bottom corner – and you never even requested permission to use ??
It’s really urgent. We prefer you remove it to sending a Complaint to Google – Court and have them suspend this interesting blog due to Copyright Infringement .
We are represented by a photo agency and cannot have our images illegally used this way.
Thanks in advance
Marco C. Pereira
Got2Globe.com
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I apologise for that, didn’t know. I have removed the image at once. Thanks.
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