Robert Louis Stevenson and the Portrait Photographers

ISSN： 0308-7298

Source： History of Photography, Vol.37, Iss.2, 2013-05, pp. : 235-242

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Abstract

This article is prompted by the remarkable characteristic of nineteenth-century Scotland that circumstances congregate to give an unprecedentedly generous or democratic view of life. Four forms of communication – the statistical accounts, which were followed by the British census records, the boom in publishing, especially in newspapers and journals, and inexpensive communication promoted by the penny post, even the information in street directories and advertisements – all combine with the exploitation of photography to give us insights, which can be disconcertingly specific, acting as occasional spotlights on the landscape. This article is prompted by one particular letter from Robert Louis Stevenson, written when he was a young man, and is followed through two lines of connected thought: the practice of studio photography in Scotland and Stevenson's continuing interest in the photographic portrait.