The Black Arrow
by Robert Louis Stevenson
- First published
- 1888
- Language
- English
- VocaScene level
- B2
- Genre
- adventure
- Length
- About 80k words
Read and learn with The Black Arrow
This English adventure is listed at B2 in the VocaScene catalog. The level is guidance for choosing reading material, not a formal language assessment. Signed-in readers can select unfamiliar words, see meanings and save vocabulary for later practice.
Public preview
No one but myself knows what I have suffered, nor what my books have gained, by your unsleeping watchfulness and admirable pertinacity. And now here is a volume that goes into the world and lacks your _imprimatur_: a strange thing in our joint lives; and the reason of it stranger still! I have watched with interest, with pain, and at length with amusement, your unavailing attempts to peruse _The Black Arrow_; and I think I should lack humour indeed, if I let the occasion slip and did not place your name in the fly-leaf of the only book of mine that you have never read--and never will read.
That others may display more constancy is still my hope. The tale was written years ago for a particular audience and (I may say) in rivalry with a particular author; I think I should do well to name him, Mr. Alfred R. Phillips. It was not without its reward at the time. I could not, indeed, displace Mr. Phillips from his well-won priority; but in the eyes of readers who thought less than nothing of _Treasure Island_, _The Black Arrow_ was supposed to mark a clear advance. Those who read volumes and those who read story papers belong to different worlds. The verdict on _Treasure Island_ was reversed in the other court; I wonder, will it be the same with its successor?
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