Robert Louis Stevenson 
A Child’s Garden of Verses (Illustrated by Jessie Willcox Smith) 

First published in 1885 under the title “Penny Whistles”, Robert Louis Stevenson’s “A Child’s Garden of Verses”, is a collection of sixty-five poems for children about darkness and solitude. Amongst the collection includes such classics as “Foreign Children”, “The Lamplighter”, “The Land of Counterpane”, “Bed in Summer”, “My Shadow”, and “The Swing.” Inspired by many of his personal experiences as a child, Stevenson in this collection evokes the loneliness of being young, which he personally felt growing up due to his many illnesses, the spirit of adventure that filled his imagination as a youth, and his recollections of friends, family, and nature during the times he spent playing in the gardens at Colinton Manse. A beautiful collection of poetry, “A Child’s Garden of Verses” is sure to evoke memories of youth in all its readers and delight the child in all of us. This edition includes the illustrations of Jessie Wilcox Smith which first appeared in the 1905 edition.