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Robert Louis Stevenson’s Baby Book (1922)
A remarkable record of the first few years of author Robert Louis Stevenson's life, as noted down by his mother in a "Baby Book". The book featured above, published in 1922, consists of a facsimile of the original handwritten baby book followed by a transcription. Amid various baby-related milestones, such as first teeth, crawl, walk, etc., we hear reports of a young "Lou" (also called "Boulihasker, Smoutie, Baron Broadnose, Signor Sprucki,.. Maister Sprook") first engaging with and questioning the world around him... here's a few little golden snippets:
March 27th: Another dream." I dreamt that I was at a marriage and a boy asked me to go to his room and when I looked out at the window I saw a basket hanging down from the sky and it was full of doors all around and somebody gave me something that wasn't good for me and I would not take it." The something appeared to be a cookie of some kind and he said the basket "was hung on a nail driven into a cloud."
Nov 13, 2012