Wayfaring in the outlands: borders, mobility, and nature in Robert Louis Stevenson’s writing

Abstract

Robert Louis Stevenson crossed many boundaries. Geographically, his travels led him not only across Scotland and the British Isles, but also through Europe, North America, and finally towards the South Seas. These geographical wanderings are reflected in his writing where his inclination to move across borders is paralleled on a formal level by a crossing of genres and forms, of fact and fiction, between high and popular culture. Stevenson appears fascinated with the narrative potential of borders; not only the geographical and cultural borders he crossed but also the limits of the human body (Murfin 2012) and, by extension, the border been self and environment. Stevenson figures as a “writer of boundaries,”whose works necessitate a “rethinking of conventional categories” (Ambrosini and Dury 2006, xviii) because they resist being read in clear and binary terms. This mobile quality of Stevenson’s writing makes his works especially suitable for thinking archipelagically at the end of the nineteenth century. These mobile and playful qualities of Stevenson’s writing not only complicate unambiguous interpretation but also make it difficult to single out just one text as an object of study: Stevenson’s writings speak to each other, connected not only through sudden reappearances of characters but also through recurring philosophical and political debates. In Kidnapped (1886), an array of attitudes towards environment, national identity, and bordering processes are represented through David Balfour’s travels. The often short, momentary glimpses of these attitudes offered by the novel can be illuminated by a consideration of Stevenson’s travel writings as magnifying vignettes. This article will complement a reading of Stevenson’s novel Kidnapped with an examination of his travel essays to further an understanding of the techniques and methods employed in the novel by illustrating the political and philosophical thought they grew out of. I will take movement as a central focus for a rereading of Robert Louis Stevenson’s depictions of the geography and ecology of the British Isles, and Scotland in particular, focusing on the novel Kidnapped (1886) and his travel essays. Drawing on recent theories from border studies, mobility studies, and environmental studies, I will compare and contrast Stevenson’s fictional writing as exemplified by his historical adventure novel Kidnapped with the more philosophical ruminations of his travel essays to shed light on his distinctive understanding of the geography and environment of the British Isles. The cross currents that can be observed between Stevenson’s early travel essays and Kidnapped indicate how Stevenson uses mobility to create an environmental