Across the Plains

I always imagine St. Andrews to be an ineffectual seat of learning, and the sound of the east wind and the bursting surf to linger in its drowsy classrooms and confound the utterance of the professor...-from "Random Memories"With observations both trenchant and sentimental from the keen eye of one of the 19th century's most beloved writers, this charming volume, first published in 1892, is a delightful potpourri of Robert Louis Stevenson's essays. Within:. a recounting of an overland trip from New York to San Francisco, with thoughts on the people and landscape of America. a valentine to a French artists' colony... and a withering eye for the artists themselves ("'Snoozing' is a part of the artistic education"). commentary on the cantankerous and windswept nature of "The Coast of Fife" and the value of "The Education of an Engineer."These musings of an inveterate wandering and keen spectator of life serve as a glimpse into the mind and memories of an author's imagination, and serve as a vital psychological backdrop for the tales of adventure, romance, and horror related in Stevenson's fiction.Scottish writer and poet ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON (1850-1894) was born in Edinburgh to a prosperous family of engineers, but gave up the family profession first for law and then for literature. Among his prodigious output as a writer are: Treasure Island (1883), The Black Arrow (1884), A Child's Garden of Verses (1885), Kidnapped (1886), and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886).