Title: Weir of Hermiston /
Authors: Stevenson, Robert Louis, 1850-1894; Kerrigan, Catherine
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press,
Year: 1995
Subjects: Fathers and sons Fiction; Country life Fiction; Young men Fiction.; Judges Fiction; Scotland Fiction.
Abstract: In Stevenson's tale of father - son confrontation, the father, Adam Weir, is modelled on Lord Braxfield, the eighteenth-century 'hanging judge'. Weir, a 'risen man' who has married a wealthy but weak woman, is both feared and respected, not least by his own son, Archie. At a public hanging, Archie speaks out against capital punishment, knowing that it was his own father who sentenced the man.