Stevenson as a Writer of French

This chapter studies Stevenson as a writer of French and explores how he plays with French in his correspondence, how he incorporates French and discussions of language difference into his fiction and non-fiction, how he imitated French style at the beginning of his career and how this impacted his future writing. It studies the creative process whereby French and French literature contributed to Stevenson’s writing voice and to the disruption of textual stability in favour of aesthetic variation and stylistic self-awareness. The chapter shows that, for Stevenson, language contact and literary cross-pollination are a means of challenging the foundations of the realist novel. The chapter is divided into four sections: ‘Playing with French’; ‘French in Stevenson’s Published Works: (Anti-)Realism’; ‘French Style and English Literature’; ‘From Petits Poèmes en prose to Novels’.