Robert Louis Stevenson and the colour green

This article is yet another in the series that lists interesting references to and occurrences of the colour green in the lives and works of selected writers. 

Although Robert Louis Stevenson's stories don't inspire commentary the way that, for example, John Buchan's do, he has been mentioned previously in a couple of articles about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's essay collection Through the Magic Door. 

It was the many references to Robert Louis Stevenson in this book of Conan Doyle's that gave me the idea of looking for significant green connections in Stevenson's life and works. 

The results of the investigation were a little disappointing when compared with what I had collected for other writers, but I found enough material for an article.

While most of the occurrences of the colour green in Stevenson's writings are just routine descriptions of natural features such as vegetation and the sea, he has some green connections that have been mentioned in articles about other writers. For example, Longmans, Green & Co. published many of Stevenson's works in addition to those of Conan Doyle, and Roger Lancelyn Green, who wrote books about Rudyard Kipling, praised Stevenson's 'consistently high level of literary skill or sheer imaginative power'.

Green family connections
The novelist Graham Greene is mentioned in the second article about John Buchan and the colour green; Graham Greene's maternal grandmother was a first cousin of Robert Louis Stevenson on his mother’s side. 

The father of Dora E. Stevenson, who wrote a novel called Green Money about a Mr. Green, was a cousin of Robert Louis Stevenson.

Green coats and Sir Walter Scott
Green clothing of various kinds has been mentioned in several articles, the one about kirtles and shirts for example.

Conan Doyle's Through the Magic Door contains many references to Sir Walter Scott and his Waverley novels.

Robert Louis Stevenson's unfinished novel St. Ives: Being The Adventures of a French Prisoner in England (1897) contains a description of the French prisoner's encounter with Scott.

Scott's green coat is mentioned several times:

”I…have actually met and spoken with that inimitable author. Our encounter was of a tall, stoutish, elderly gentleman...He sat on a hill pony, wrapped in a plaid over his green coat...Years after it chanced that I was one day diverting myself with a Waverley Novel, when what should I come upon but the identical narrative of my green-coated gentleman upon the moors! In a moment the scene, the tones of his voice, his northern accent...flashed back into my mind with the reality of dreams. The unknown in the green-coat had been the Great Unknown!”

Rudyard Kipling and some green connections

Posts about Rudyard Kipling and Arthur Conan Doyle are very popular, so I am always looking for inspiration for more articles. 

After writing about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes and the colour green, I decided to investigate occurrences of this colour in the life and works of Rudyard Kipling. 

I didn't find anything amazing, but some connections are worth mentioning. The people and places that Kipling has in common with Conan Doyle are particularly interesting.

Roger Lancelyn Green
Writer Roger Lancelyn Green (1918 – 1987) was the father of Richard Lancelyn Green, the previously mentioned authority on Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes. He was editor of the Kipling Journal and wrote and edited books about Kipling: 

The school in Green Road
When Rudyard Kipling was staying in the House of Desolation in Southsea, he attended what he called 'a terrible little day-school'. 

Roger Lancelyn Green identified the school as Hope House in  Green Road, the same road that Conan Doyle's house stood opposite. Conan Doyle's younger brother Innes later came to live at this house and became a pupil at Hope House school. 

The Green, Rottingdean
Conan Doyle lived in Bush Villas, Elm Grove, Southsea; Rudyard Kipling stayed with his family at The Elms, The Green, Rottingdean near Brighton for a few years. The large garden and grounds of this house have been preserved, and as Kipling Gardens are now open to the public:

Greenhow Hill

Greenhow Hill is a village in North Yorkshire.

Rudyard Kipling's short story On Greenhow Hill was first published in Harper’s Magazine in 1890. It also appeared in Life's Handicap, a collection of Kipling's stories. 

What makes the story of additional interest is that Conan Doyle's editor at the Strand Magazine was Herbert Greenhough Smith; by coincidence the name Greenhough is derived from Greenhow Hill.