Record Number: 20512

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Reading Experience:

Evidence:

'[…] I’ve been to church and am not depressed − a great step. I was at that beautiful church my P.P.P.[Petit Poeme en Prose] was about. It is a little cruciform place, with heavy cornices and string course to match, and a steep slate roof. The small kirkyard is full of old gravestones; one of a Frenchman from Dunquerque, I suppose he died prisoner in the military prison hard by. And one, the most pathetic memorial I ever saw: a poor school-slate, in a wooden frame, with the inscription cut into it evidently by the father’s own hand.'

Century:

1850-1899

Date:

4 Jul 1875

Country:

Scotland

Time

daytime

Place:

city: Glencorse, nr Edinburgh
county: Mid-Lothian
specific address: Glencorse Church/Old Kirk.
other location: The churchyard.

Type of Experience
(Reader):
 

silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

Type of Experience
(Listener):
 

solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

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Reader / Listener / Reading Group:

Reader:

Robert Louis Stevenson

Age:

Adult (18-100+)

Gender:

Male

Date of Birth:

13 Nov 1850

Socio-Economic Group:

Professional / academic / merchant / farmer

Occupation:

Aspiring writer and intermittent law student

Religion:

Uncommitted.

Country of Origin:

Scotland

Country of Experience:

Scotland

Listeners present if any:
e.g family, servants, friends

n/a

Additional Comments:

n/a

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Text Being Read:

Author:

Anon [Apprently the father of the dead child]

Title:

[memorial on grave]

Genre:

Improvised memorial on grave.

Form of Text:

Manuscript: Inscription carved on school slate.

Publication Details

n/a

Provenance

read in situ

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Source Information:

Record ID:

20512

Source:

Print

Author:

Robert Louis Stevenson

Editor:

Bradford A. Booth

Title:

The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson, April 1874-July 1879

Place of Publication:

New Haven and London

Date of Publication:

1994

Vol:

2

Page:

147

Additional Comments:

Section headed Sunday in Letter 399, To Frances Sitwell, Thursday [1 July 1875], [Swanston]. Co-editor Ernest Mehew, The material in square brackets has been added by the editors

Citation:

Robert Louis Stevenson, Bradford A. Booth (ed.), The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson, April 1874-July 1879, (New Haven and London, 1994), 2, p. 147, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=20512, accessed: 03 May 2024

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Additional Comments:

On p. 147 in the Editors’ Note 3 to Letter 399 we read: “Glencorse Church in the Pentlands, now a picturesque ruin.[…] The church and the clergyman reappear in ch. 6 of "Weir of Hermiston." The gravestones are still there. The French prisoner was Charles Cotier, captured during the Napoleonic wars and killed in January 1807 when a sentry was ordered to fire at random into the prison; there was a public outcry and the officer responsible was sentenced to nine months’ imprisonment.”