The laughter of Dr. Livesey: scientists have taken up the “decolonization” of the works of the author of “Treasure Island”

So far we are talking about three works of Stevenson

The wave of politically correct struggle against the colonial past, fashionable in the West, has reached the Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson. NGO Quango paid more than £800,000 to researchers from the University of Edinburgh to find and destroy “many of the colonial stereotypes typical of fin-de-siècle Western literature.”

Robert Louis Stevenson is one of the most famous Scottish writers. Hemingway and Kipling admired him, and the novel “Treasure Island” became the most popular work throughout the world.

But now it’s not the end of the 19th century, but the middle of the 21st. Today, the works of Robert Louis Stevenson are being studied by woke scholars looking for “colonial stereotypes” in the author’s works.

Community organization Quango is paying more than £800,000 to researchers at the University of Edinburgh to study how the Victorian author treated the indigenous people of the Pacific Islands.

Part of the project is expected to include trips to remote South Sea locations such as Samoa and Hawaii.

Taxpayers’ Alliance investigative campaign director Joanna Marchong said: “The bureaucrats who insist on funding this nonsense should be told they are treading on thin ice.”

The UK’s Quango Research and Innovation (UKRI) Foundation is paying the university £809,334 for a three-year project called Fixing Stevenson: Decolonizing the Pacific Fiction of Robert Louis Stevenson through Graphic Adaptation, Arts Education and Public Engagement.

The project’s website states: “Given that educational institutions around the world are actively engaged in decolonizing their curricula, Stevenson’s work and legacy constitute a particularly valuable subject of study.”

It adds: Although the writer treated the locals “with considerable freedom and dignity,” his works included “many of the colonial stereotypes typical of fin-de-siècle Western literature.”

The study will cover three stories published in Stevenson’s collection Island Evening Conversations: “The Satanic Bottle”, “The Island of Voices” and “The Beach of Thales”.

A UKRI spokesperson said: “UKRI invests in a diverse portfolio of research and innovation. Funding decisions for the research projects we support are made through a rigorous peer review process by relevant independent experts from academia and business.”