Underwoods by Robert Louis Stevenson

Underwoods is a deeply personal and varied collection of verse in which Robert Louis Stevenson turns illness, friendship, travel, memory, and mortality into song. Opening with a playful self-deprecation and a heartfelt dedication, the book honors the doctors who eased his suffering and the friends who sustained him, especially Thomas Bodley Scott of Bournemouth. Stevenson also speaks candidly about writing in Scots, humorously wrestling with spelling and pronunciation while defending the living music of the Lothians and the emotional truth of regional speech. The collection is divided between English and Scots poems, ranging from intimate tributes to Andrew Lang, Henry James, family, and other companions, to lyrics of home, nature, faith, grief, and homesickness. Music and language recur as sources of renewal: one poem calls for the pipe to rise and transform pain into hope, beauty, and remembrance. The Scots section adds humor, reflection, and keen social observation, making Underwoods a lyrical, affectionate, and distinctly human poetic landscape. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.