Robert Louis Stevenson’s Inland Voyage Notebook

Robert Louis Stevenson’s Inland Voyage Notebook, written during his three-week waterway journey from Belgium into France, is here transcribed for the first time.

It provides documentary information about the journey not available elsewhere; an insight into Stevenson’s literary technique and compositional choices; and numerous observations and turns of phrase omitted from the published version.

The Notebook consists mainly of drafts which must have been written in inns on four stopover days, and show that Stevenson already had an idea of the finished work when he started. He deliberately avoids what you might expect from a conventional travel book: there are no careful descriptions of places and sights. Instead, he records ‘sights of ordinary life, hardships, rebuffs, oddity, humour, moments of human sympathy’ …

The emphasis throughout these drafts is on moments of existence: experiences, things observed, emotions and thoughts—brief annotations of fleeting experience possibly influenced by contemporary French painters and their aim to capture ephemeral impressions.