Andro Linklater
The novel that gave me most pleasure in 1994 was Candia McWilliam's Debatable Land (Bloomsbury, £14.99), the story of a voyage through the Pacific. The precision of its language alone would have been dis- tinction enough — The room hardly shone, though it did glint, with slipping velvet, tormented horn, snapped ormolu and colours made to be flattered by dust, coral, amber and the slick internal pink of shells' — but as evidence of a novelist find- ing her true voice, it was twice welcome. The publication of the first two of eight volumes of Robert Louis Stevenson's Let- ters (Yale, £29.95 each) heralds the arrival of what will be the definitive source of information about the character of the most attractive figure in late Victorian lit- erature. This is a work of love by its main editor, Ernest Mehew, and its pedigree shows.
Previous page
