Robert Louis Stevenson's Ethics for Rascals

About the Book

ETHICS FOR RASCALS spotlights the romantic adventures, provocative ethics, and playful philosophy of the prince of storytellers, Robert Louis Stevenson, quixotic wanderer and prototype for Sir James M. Barrie´s Peter Pan. This unique introduction to RLS and his spirited mate, Fanny Osbourne -- who fell in love in the romantic environs of Paris and married under the spell of California's Big Sur-Monterey coast -- throws down the gauntlet, daring readers to turn every trial into an adventure, to do nothing that insults their own souls, and to have a little open-hearted fun along the way to ´El dorado.´ Recognizing the inner illumination of even the humblest life, Stevenson urges: "Find out where joy resides, and give it a voice far beyond singing. For to miss the joy is to miss all. In the joy of the actors lies the sense of any action. That is the explanation, that the excuse!"

About the Author

ELAYNE WAREING FITZPATRICK (BA English, MS Philosophy) was a city desk reporter for The Salt Lake Tribune; promotion director of KUED, Utah’s public television station; and an associate professor at the University of Utah before relocating in California in 1974 to teach Philosophy and Humanities at Monterey Peninsula College on California’s Big Sur-Monterey coast. She is also a freelance journalist who, after raising a family, began travelling to -- and writing about -- some of the world’s most charming places unspoiled by industrial development. Other books by the author include: A Quixotic Companionship: Fanny and Robert Louis Stevenson; Robert Louis Stevenson’s Ethics for Rascals; Doing It with the Cosmos: Henry Miller’s Big Sur Struggle for Love Beyond Sex; Shepherds of Pan on the Big Sur- Monterey Coast; Nature Wisdom: Mystical Writers of the Big Sur-Monterey Coast, a revision and expansion of Shepherds of Pan in color; and an initial edition of this book in black and white. Her features have appeared in numerous periodicals. Web site: www.capricornbrae.com