Essays on the Art of Writing and Fables Book

Essays on the Art of Writing and Fablescollects seven important essays on authorship, including "On Some Technical Elements of Style" and "The Morality of the Profession of Letters," as well as Robert Louis Stevenson's accounts of writing Treasure Island and The Master of Ballantrae. Written more than a century ago, these essays are full of insight for today?s readers and brimming with still-applicable wisdom for modern writers. Stevenson?s collection of twenty Fables has little to do with conventional lessons of right and wrong. His allegorical parables offer, instead, what the author called "tail foremost moralities." Stevenson slices through societal façades of hypocrisy, bigotry, and stupidity with sardonic wit more akin to Monty Python than Aesop. Some of the darker tales may remind one of the works of Edgar Allan Poe or Ambrose Bierce. Odd and evocative, amusing and thought provoking, Stevenson?s fables might prove more appropriate for our day and age than his own.Read More