During his lifetime Stevenson published "A Child's Garden of Verses" (1885) and its predecessors "Penny Whistles, Underwoods" (1887) and "Ballads" (1890). There were also various private press adventures in poetry with his stepson Lloyd Osbourne, and the posthumous "Songs of Travel" (1895), and "New Poems" (1918). This edition contains this poetry and also some of Stevenson's printed and manuscript poems that have never been published in any collection. The edition also identifies and restores various poems assembled by Stevenson in his "Notebooks", many of which were destroyed by members of The Boston Bibliophile Society. The editor, Roger Lewis, has carefully studied Stevenson's manuscripts and letters, identifying many variants in individual poems and in orders of his collections, as well as in the editorial procedures of a succession of RLS's literary associates who claimed to be fulfilling his intentions or acting on his authority. The ordering of this edition follows Stevenson's own final arrangement over unauthorized editorial rearrangments or strict considerations of chronology.
Complete and accurate dates of composition and publication of individual poems and of collections are given wherever possible. Appendices include bibliographical description and location for manuscript and printed sources of all poems in the edition; "poems in process" - how Stevenson sketched and revised during composition; notebooks - bibliographical history and significance; chronology and ordonnance of poetic units. There are also explanatory and textual notes. Scots poems are glossed and annotated using "The Concise Scots Dictionary" and web resources of the SNDA. A substantial introduction covers the publishing histories of individual volumes and literary influences, placing emphasis on Stevenson as a Scottish poet and arguing for his best verse to be considered as good as his best fiction.