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R L Stevenson memorial, W Gordon Smith and Muriel Spark
Unknown, 1989, Photograph
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R L Stevenson memorial, W Gordon Smith and Muriel Spark
R L Stevenson memorial, W Gordon Smith and Muriel Spark
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Location
Category
Library Item
Item no
12571
Title
R. L. Stevenson memorial admired by W. Gordon Smith and Muriel Spark
Artist / maker
Unknown
Date
1989
Size
20.2 x 25.4 cm
Type
Photograph
Location
Edinburgh and Scottish Collection
The Robert Louis Stevenson memorial was commissioned by the Stevenson Society in 1987 and sculpted by Ian Hamilton Finlay. It is set amongst silver birch trees in West Princes Street Gardens. Stevenson wrote in his letters that he did not want a large memorial.
Muriel Spark was born in 1918 at 160 Bruntsfield Place. In 1935, she attended Heriot-Watt College, where she learnt prècise writing. Muriel did not publish her first novel until she was 39, but is now regarded as one of Edinburgh's most celebrated authors. In 1989, she was awarded an honorary D.Litt from the University of Edinburgh, and was subsequently made a Dame. She died in 2006.
W Gordon Smith was born in 1928 and began his career as a newspaper journalist, joined the BBC in the late 1950s and became a producer for radio, then televison, making over 100 arts documentaries. He was also well known as a playwright. In 1980 he left the BBC and returned to journalism, becoming the arts and theatre critic for Scotland on Sunday in 1990, and also wrote biographies. He died in 1996.
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