THE REAL ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON & Other Critical Essays

This interesting and perceptive volume of the critical essays of the poet, Francis Thompson, is being issued by the press of Boston College. Behind the volume lies the unusual story of Father Terence Connolly, an enthusiastic admirer of the author of The Hound of Heaven, who is the curator of the greatest collection of Thompson papers in this country. From time to time he gives his readers the benefit of his scholarly enthusiasm by issuing new and unknown Thompsoniana. This particular volume is devoted largely to unsigned critical essays and book reviews by Thompson. Many were published in the Athenaeum, in England or in The Academy, a little known journal in this country. Their range of subject is wide, mainly contemporary to the early years of this century, and deal with such figures as Stevenson, Patmore, Henley, Walter Savage Landor, the early Yeats, etc. Their insight and sensitivity are enchanting. Any scholar of this period in English literature -- or in the viewpoint of the poet Thompson- can read this with delight. It will have a limited but knowledgeable audience, largely, perhaps, among Catholics.