ABSTRACT
Among the works of Stevenson, the reader often comes across disconcerting parallels drawn between the creations of the Eastern story-teller and the Renaissance play wright, such as this comparison in ‘A Gossip on Romance’ (1882). On further ref lection, though, it becomes clear that the success enjoyed by The New Arabian Nights (1878) was hardly a surprise, justifying as it did Stevenson’s confidence in an educated Victorian public. A reading public whose sophistication may be gauged ( just one example will suffice because it is a test case) by the subtle fashion in which Elizabeth Gaskell — Dickens’s ‘Dear Scheherazade’ — weaves an intricate arabesque narrative web that helps to shape, characterize and amplify the concerns of North and South (1855).2 Such an audience could be relied upon to recognize the affinities between The Arabian Nights Entertainments and the Shakespearean canon, most particularly, A Winter’s Tale.
