of continuity, when his stories do not, as in Treasure Island, represent a single uninterrupted effort. Kidnapped, for example, is made up of two different stories, and The Wrecker is a curious example of piecing together heterogeneous fragments. Moreover, a good deal of the work is the product of a feebler exercise of the fancy intercalated between the general fits of inspiration. The undeniably successful books, where he has thrown himself thoroughly into the spirit of the story, stand out among a good deal of very inferior merit. I will confine myself to speaking of the four Scottish novels which appear to be accepted as his best achievements, and to endeavouring to point out what was the proper sphere of his genius.
They represent a development of the Treasure Island method. He began Kidnapped as another book for boys, and the later stories may be classed for some purposes with the Waverley series. Stevenson was fond of discussing the classification of novels. He contrasts the 'novel of adventure,' the novel of character, and the dramatic novel. Properly speaking, this is not a classification of radically different species, but an indication of the different sources of interest upon which a novelist
