Andrew Lang

“On reading ‘Ordered South’, I saw, at once, that here was a new writer, a writer indeed; one who could do what none of us, nous autres, could rival, or approach. I was instantly ‘sealed of the Tribe of Louis’, an admirer, a devotee, a fanatic, if you please. . . ”
(Andrew Lang, Adventures Among Books [London: Longmans, Green and Co, 1905], p. 44)

Andrew Lang (1844-1912) was a poet, literary critic, journalist, historian and friend to RLS. The men met on 12 February 1874 in Menton. Stevenson had been “ordered south” to Menton for health reasons in 1873. Lang was also there to convalesce.

RLS wrote: ‘Yesterday, we had a visit from one of whom I had often heard from Mrs. Sellar – Andrew Lang. He is good-looking, delicate, boyish, Oxfordish, etc. He did not impress me unfavourably; nor deeply in any way’

(Letter from RLS to his mother, 13 February 1874, The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson, ed. by Bradford A. Booth and Ernest Mehew, vol I [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995], p. 483).

Although RLS claimed not to be very interested, he and Lang remained friends for the rest of RLS’s life. Lang also wrote an introductory essay for the Swanston edition (1911) of The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson:

Lang is probably best known for his writings on folklore, mythology and religion. In particular he is remembered for his important work in collecting together traditional English fairy tales and folk stories in Andrew Lang’s Fairy Books. These twelve volumes were published from 1889 – 1910. Lang was also an extremely versatile and prolific writer, producing works on anthropology, psychical research, the Classics, and history.

“So much has been written on R. L. Stevenson, as a boy, a man, and a man of letters, so much has been written both by himself and others, that I can hope to add nothing essential to the world’s knowledge of his character and appreciation of his genius. What is essential has been said, once for all, by Sir Sidney Colvin in “Notes and Introductions” to R. L. S.’s Letters to His Family and Friends. I can but contribute the personal views of one who knew, loved, and esteemed his junior that is already a classic; but who never was of the inner circle of his intimates. We shared, however, a common appreciation of his genius, for he was not so dull as to suppose, or so absurd as to pretend to suppose, that much of his work was not excellent”
(Lang, “Introductory Essay”, The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, vol I [London: Chatto and Windus, 1911]).