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THIS PAPER WILL PRESENT a situation of alleged plagiarism as it arose in the life of Robert Louis Stevenson. I did not originally plan to investigate this subject. It seems rather to have overtaken me as I reviewed a mass of biographical material preparatory to writing a sequel to a paper, "The Childhood of the Artist," written more than twenty years ago.
I do not count myself a psychobiographer, and have exploited biography only as a source of material which may aid in understanding clinical problems encountered in my practice of psychoanalysis. I would concur with the opinion expressed by Freud and others that the nucleus of creativity does not lend itself to psychoanalytic procedures. I believe that a study of the childhood, especially of the very early years, of creative people may yield further understanding of early forces that promote or impede and may distort creative development and productivity. Such a study has to be approached with a willingness to review the entire life story of the creative individual, insofar as it is available.
It was in this setting that the sleuth in me was aroused to