We have already examined some of the ways in which Stevenson responded to debates in French literature as he attempted not only to situate himself within literary history, but to develop his ideas about genre at a time when the novel was rapidly evolving and new movements were emerging. This chapter looks at Stevenson as a writer of French and explores how he plays with French in his correspondence, how he incorporates French and discussions of language difference into his fiction and non-fiction, how he imitated French style at the beginning of his writing career, and how this early apprenticeship impacted his future writing. In so doing, it aims to study the creative process whereby French and French literature contributed to Stevenson’s writing voice and to the disruption of the textual stability of realism in favour of aesthetic variation and stylistic self-awareness. As R.L. Abrahamson reminds us, ‘there were all those times as a sedulous ape, when books were not companions, or therapy, or research, but textbooks on style’. Ultimately, I hope to demonstrate that for Stevenson, language contact and transnational literary cross-pollination are means not only of perfecting his style, in all its playful, exuberant, striking experimentation, but of challenging the domination of the realist novel by opening it up to the possibilities of stylistically self-aware romance where multiple voices can coexist.

Stevenson’s life as a writer of French began at an early age: he first used schoolboy French to comic effect in correspondence to his parents when he was thirteen years old. Thereafter, he frequently turned to French in letters that display considerable linguistic virtuosity, as well as a marked predilection for transforming life into art.