Strenuously resisting the authority of the literary 'fathers' (though haunted by the complexities of paternity to an extent which coloured virtually all his fiction), Stevenson reveals strong affinities with emergent Modernism.

From this perspective, Robert Louis Stevenson and the Appearance of Modernism conducts a lively and readable re-examination of a highly original and entertaining writer who was also a serious artist dedicated to revitalizing an art he had found to be 'like mahogany and horsehair furniture, solid, true, serious and dead as Caesar'. This, the first full-length study of Stevenson's writing for nearly thirty years, sets new parameters for the critical appraisal of his work.