Standing on the deck of the sinking Lusitania, the American theatrical manager Charles Frohman spoke his last words. 'Why fear death?' he was heard to say. 'It is the most beautiful adventure in life.' He may have been echoing J.M. Barrie, whose 'awfully big adventure' had only recently chimed with children of all ages. But the immediate circumstances - shipwreck, showmanship, early death - also bring to mind the life and career of Robert Louis Stevenson, another Scottish writer who looked at human adventure as a brand of metaphysics.

LRB 17 February 2005 | PDF Download