Even so, however, it was not at once that Stevenson took to fiction.

He began with essays, literary and miscellaneous, and with personal accounts of travel: and certain critical friends of his strongly urged him to continue in this way.

During the years 1878 and 1879, in a short-lived periodical called _London_, which came to be edited by his friend the late Mr.Henley and had a very small staff, he issued certain _New Arabian Nights_ which caught the attention of one or two of his fellow-contributors very strongly, and made them certain that a new power in fiction-writing had arisen.

It did not, however, at first much attract the public: and it was the kind of thing which never attracts publishers until the public forces their hands.

For a time he had to wait, and to take what opportunity he could get of periodical publication, "boy's book"-writing, and the like.