Tales and Fantasies

Tales and Fantasies is a short story collection by Robert Louis Stevenson. The book was published posthumously in 1905. It contains three stories, which were not published as a part of a collection during Stevenson′s lifetime:"The Misadventures of John Nicholson: A Christmas Story" (1885-87). First published in Yule Tide, 1887, later in the Edinburgh Edition, 1897."The Body Snatcher" (1881). First published in the Christmas 1884 edition of the Pall Mall Gazette, later in the Edinburgh Edition, 1895."The Story of a Lie" (1879). First published in New Quarterly Magazine in 1879; later in The Novels and Tales of Robert Louis Stevenson, vol 3, 1895.John Varey Nicholson was stupid; yet, stupider men than he are now sprawling in Parliament, and lauding themselves as the authors of their own distinction. He was of a fat habit, even from boyhood, and inclined to a cheerful and cursory reading of the face of life; and possibly this attitude of mind was the original cause of his misfortunes. Beyond this hint philosophy is silent on his career, and superstition steps in with the more ready explanation that he was detested of the gods.His father--that iron gentleman--had long ago enthroned himself on the heights of the Disruption Principles. What these are (and in spite of their grim name they are quite innocent) no array of terms would render thinkable to the merely English intelligence; but to the Scot they often prove unctuously nourishing, and Mr. Nicholson found in them the milk of lions. About the period when the churches convene at Edinburgh in their annual assemblies, he was to be seen descending the Mound in the company of divers red-headed clergymen: these voluble, he only contributing oracular nods, brief negatives, and the austere spectacle of his stretched upper lip. The names of Candlish and Begg were frequent in these interviews, and occasionally the talk ran on the Residuary Establishment and the doings of one Lee. A stranger to the tight little theological kingdom of Scotland might have listened and gathered literally nothing. AuthorRobert Louis Balfour Stevenson (13 November 1850 - 3 December 1894) was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, musician and travel writer. His most famous works are Treasure Island, Kidnapped, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and A Child''s Garden of Verses. Stevenson was a literary celebrity during his lifetime, and now ranks as the 26th most translated author in the world. His works have been admired by many other writers, including Jorge Luis Borges, Bertolt Brecht, Marcel Proust, Arthur Conan Doyle, Henry James, Cesare Pavese, Emilio Salgari, Ernest Hemingway, Rudyard Kipling, Jack London, Vladimir Nabokov, J. M. Barrie, and G. K. Chesterton, who said that Stevenson "seemed to pick the right word up on the point of his pen, like a man playing spillikins". Stevenson was visiting a cousin in England in late 1873 when he met two people who became very important to him--Sidney Colvin and Fanny (Frances Jane) Sitwell. Sitwell was a 34-year-old woman with a son, who was separated from her husband. She attracted the devotion of many who met her, including Colvin, who eventually married her in 1901. Stevenson was also drawn to her, and they kept up a heated correspondence over several years in which he wavered between the role of a suitor and a son (he addressed her as "Madonna"). Colvin became Stevenson''s literary adviser and was the first editor of Stevenson''s letters after his death. Soon after their first meeting, he had placed Stevenson''s first paid contribution in The Portfolio--an essay titled "Roads". Stevenson was soon active in London literary life, becoming acquainted with many of the writers of the time, including Andrew Lang, Edmund Gosse, and Leslie Stephen, the editor of the Cornhill Magazine who took an interest in Stevenson''s work. Stephen in turn introduced him to a more important friend while visiting Edinburgh in 1875.