English literature the book is designed to acquaint students with the main outlines

Her intellect was sufficiently employed in the difficult problem of structure not to impede her imagination. She had achieved the nearest approach in English to Balzac. In George Elliot’s work,
one is aware ofher desire to enlarge die possibilities of the novel as a form of expression: she wishes to include new themes, to penetrate more deeply into her characters’ psychology.

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)

R.L. Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, essayist, and poet who became one of the world’s most popular writers. He was bom on November 13, 1850, in Edinburgh, Scotland. He was a sickly boy who suffered from a lung disease that later developed into tuber­ culosis. Young Stevenson loved the open air, the sea, adventure, and, especially, reading. He was a man of strong will. He fought illness constantly and wrote many of his books in a sickbed. He traveled widely for his health and to leam about people.

Stevenson’s father was a Scottish engineer, and the boy was expected to follow in his father’s footsteps, but he preferred literature and history. When he was 7, Stevenson entered Edinburgh University to study engineering, his father’s profes­ sion. But this profession was not appealing for him and as a compromise he agreed to study law. He graduated from the University in 1875, but he did not enjoy law and never practiced it. His real love was writing. By the time ofhis graduation from the University he had already begun writing for magazines. He began publishing short stories and essays in the mid-1870s.

The writer’s first book “An Inland Voyage” appeared in 1878. This work relates his experiences during a canoeing trip through France and Belgium. In his next book “Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes”, written in 1879, Stevenson describes a walking tour through France.