Edinburgh: Picturesque Notes

Stevenson, Robert Louis, 1850-1894Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.3

Word count: 123K words
Chapters: 13

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Edinburgh: Picturesque Notes by Robert Louis StevensonAuthor: Stevenson, Robert Louis, 1850-1894,Language: English, Class: DA: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: Great Britain, Ireland, Central Europe, Release Date: Dec 1, 1995

Editor's review

Edinburgh: Picturesque Notes is a collection of essays Stevenson wrote early in his career about his native Edinburgh, its prose carrying the poise and lyricism of nineteenth-century essay writing. It is not a systematic local history or a guidebook; rather, the author, with a walker's eye, brings the Old Town and New Town, streets and closes, churches, graveyards and distant hills one by one into his text, weaving personal memory and reflections on the city's character into his descriptions of scene. For today's readers its value is twofold: as a literary text, it lets one sense the mingled gloom and tenderness of style that would later mark Stevenson's novels; as a reading of a city, it preserves an impression of Edinburgh that has since vanished, and is well suited to slow perusal before or after a journey. This is a public-domain English e-book; read it slowly, attending to sentence patterns and imagery rather than plot, as a collection of essays to dip into at bedtime or on a journey.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Literary readers who enjoy nineteenth-century English prose and essays
Travellers planning a trip to Edinburgh who want to read up on its cultural background first
Readers interested in Scottish urban history and the look of the Old Town
Advanced learners who want to practise English reading with short essays

Not a good fit for

Independent travellers who need practical transport, accommodation and sightseeing information
Readers who prefer tightly plotted, strongly narrative works
Readers with weak English who find nineteenth-century prose sentences hard to read

Reading tips

Read in chapter order, pausing after each piece to recall the streets and viewpoints described.
Read alongside a map or photographs, matching the text to the city's spaces.
Skip unfamiliar Scots place names or archaic expressions at first to keep the reading rhythm going.
Copy out passages you like as models for English essay writing.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book a tourist guide to Edinburgh?

No. It is a collection of essays on the city written from the author's personal viewpoint, focused on descriptions of scene and feeling; it gives no practical information such as transport, accommodation or opening hours. For travel it can serve only as background reading, not as a substitute for a guidebook.

Can I read this book if my English is only average?

The book was written in the nineteenth century, with long sentences and period vocabulary, and is fairly difficult for the general English reader. Readers should have at least an intermediate level, or use an annotated or bilingual edition, and allow themselves to read slowly without insisting on understanding every sentence.

Is there a Chinese translation of the e-book?

According to the information provided, this is a public-domain English e-book released by Project Gutenberg, with no details of a Chinese translation. Readers should rely on the English original; anyone wanting a Chinese version should look separately for an officially authorised translation.

Do I need to know about Stevenson first to read this book?

No. The book can be read on its own, and reading it before learning about the author's life is perfectly fine. Knowing that he later wrote Treasure Island and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde makes it easier to appreciate his tone when describing the city's darker side, but that is a bonus, not a prerequisite.

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About the author

Stevenson, Robert Louis, 1850-1894 Author

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) was a nineteenth-century British writer known for adventure fiction and poetry. His representative work Treasure Island established a classic model for treasure-hunt adventure stories and has circulated widely in many translations; the library also holds the Spanish version La isla del tesoro and the German version Die Schatzinsel: Roman. Another representative work, A Child's Garden of Verses, writes from a child's perspective about play, imagination, and everyday feelings, with fresh language and natural rhythm, and is a common reader in English children's poetry. The library holds as many as 101 of his works, showing the variety of his subjects and forms. Public information is limited, so details of his life and education are not elaborated here; overall, his writing combines thrilling narrative with a lyrical tone, being strongly story-driven yet readable aloud, and has had a lasting influence on later adventure literature and children's literature.