ABSTRACT
The illustrations of Stevenson’s ctional prose work need to be separated into those volumes that concern British subject matter – referred to here as the British novels – and those that deal with Pacic subjects. This separation is necessary when we consider Stevenson’s attitudes to authenticity within illustration, which guided all his preferences and tastes regarding the visualization of his work. For example, even if he were writing a British historical novel from the Pacic, as he did with The Master of Ballantrae which he nished in Honolulu in 1889, he demanded illustrations that were not tainted by ignorance of the details of historical costume and architecture of eighteenth-century Scotland. In other words, he did not want a syndicated American artist, for example, illustrating his historical novels if they were to be ignorant of, or indifferent to, the details of time, place and contextual detail of his stories. However, in several cases, Stevenson was forced to settle for his publishers’ choices of illustrator, regardless of their technical qualities or interpretive skills. This situation arose because of Stevenson’s geographic relocation rst to America, and then to the Pacic; the distances involved in communicating with publishers, which added time pressures to the business of publishing, meant that Stevenson often had to acquiesce to publishers’ preferences and market-knowledge. As Stevenson moved gradually further from his publishing centres of London and New York, so his editorial control became increasingly fraught with obstructions and pitfalls, especially regarding illustration. He had favourite illustrators, but they were not always available, and in the case of The Black Arrow in particular, Stevenson had to settle for what was available. With the illustration of these novels, we witness a continuing friction between artistic preference and market necessity; as this chapter will demonstrate, Stevenson seemed to have found a working balance between these two demands that he found desirable, which relied on the talents of specic illustrators in America and Britain.
