Memories and Portraits

Memories and Portraits is a personal memoir of Robert Louis Stevenson, who was a Scottish novelist and travel writer, most noted for Treasure Island, Kidnapped, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and A Child's Garden of Verses.

Author's preface:

This volume of papers, unconnected as they are, it will be better to read through from the beginning, rather than dip into at random.  A certain thread of meaning binds them.  Memories of childhood and youth, portraits of those who have gone before us in the battle—taken together, they build up a face that “I have loved long since and lost awhile,” the face of what was once myself.  This has come by accident; I had no design at first to be autobiographical; I was but led away by the charm of beloved memories and by regret for the irrevocable dead; and when my own young face (which is a face of the dead also) began to appear in the well as by a kind of magic, I was the first to be surprised at the occurrence.