Empire, Exile and the Exotic

Robert Louis Stevenson and Joseph Conrad are two very different
writers. Stevenson found an ever-increasing audience with his poetry
and early travelogues, as well as Treasure Island, The Strange Case of Dr
Jekyll and Mr Hyde and his Scottish romances. Conrad first led a life
at sea and began his writing career with tales and novels set in the Far
East, Africa, South America and later, in Europe. But these two writers
also had a lot in common. Their experiences with the British empire,
exile and the exotic differed, but their assessments of these experiences
demonstrate an astonishing amount of convergence.
This collection of essays is the result of a long-term research interest
which aimed at bringing these two authors more closely together in
literary and cultural criticism. In these texts, most of which were separately
published over the past two decades, Stevenson and Conrad’s
substantial criticisms of colonial relations are contrasted with their
loves for the sea, its attractions and challenges. The volume also includes
essays on the sea as a cultural space and is rounded off by a
reading of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, which synthesises topics dealt with
earlier concerning the Victorian fin de siècle.