This article first appeared in the British Weekly for 13 May 1887, forming Stevenson's contribution to a symposium on this subject by some of the celebrated writers of the day, including Gladstone, Ruskin, Hamerton; and others as widely different as Archdeacon Farrar and Rider Haggard. In the same year (1887) the papers were all collected and published by the Weekly in a volume, with the title Books Which Have Influenced Me. This essay was later included in the complete editions of Stevenson's Works (Edinburgh ed., Vol. XI, Thistle ed., Vol. XXII).
[Note 1: First published in the British Weekly, May 13, 1887.]
[Note 2: Of the British Weekly.]
[Note 3: The most influential books … are works of fiction. This statement is undoubtedly true, if we use the word "fiction" in the sense understood here by Stevenson. It is curious, however, to note the rise in dignity of "works of fiction," and of "novels"; people used to read them with apologies, and did not like to be caught at it. The cheerful audacity of Stevenson's declaration would have seemed like blasphemy fifty years earlier.]
[Note 4: Mrs. Scott Siddons. Not for a moment to be confounded with the great actress Sarah Siddons, who died in 1831. Mrs. Scott Siddons, in spite of Stevenson's enthusiasm, was not an actress of remarkable power.]
[Note 5: Kent's brief speech. Toward the end of King Lear.]
"Vex not his ghost: O, let him pass! he hates him
That would upon the rack of this tough world
Stretch him out longer.">[
[Note 6: D'Artagnan … Vicomte de Bragelonne. See Stevenson's essay, A Gossip on a Novel of Dumas's (1887), in Memories and Portraits. See also Note 3 of Chapter II above and Note 43 of Chapter IV above. Vicomte de Bragelonne is the title of the sequel to Twenty Years After, which is the sequel to the Musketeers. Dumas wrote 257 volumes of romance, plays, travels etc.]
[Note 7: Pilgrim's Progress. See Note 13 of Chapter V above.]
[Note 8: Essais of Montaigne. See Note 6 of Chapter VI above. The best translation in English of the Essais is that by the Elizabethan, John Florio (1550-1625), a contemporary of Montaigne. His translation appeared in 1603, and may now be obtained complete in the handy "Temple" classics. There is a copy of Florio's Montaigne with Ben Jonson's autograph, and also one that has what many believe to be a genuine autograph of Shakspere.]