About The Author
STEVENSON, ROBERT LOUIS (1850-1894)
Robert Louis Stevenson was born in November, 1850,in Edinburgh, Scotland. He was a sickly child and suffered from tuberculosis throughout his adult life. The men in Stevenson family were engineers who designed and built lighthouses and sea lights. While Stevenson was interested in the sea, he had no desire to follow in the traditional family occupation. He was considered a rebel, and disagreed with his family's strict Presbyterian lifestyle. Instead, he completed law school and passed the Scottish bar. Soon after this, he turned to writing as a career, which disappointed his parents. He wrote essays about Edinburgh, which were printed in the Edinburgh University Magazine.
Stevenson traveled frequently both to visit new places and to try and find a comfortable climate for his illness. While in France, he met an American widow named Fanny Osbourne. He went to San Francisco with her and married her in 1880.
Both Fanny and her son, Lloyd, encouraged Stevenson to write. His first piece of fiction, a short story called A Lodging for the Night was published in 1877. The inspiration for The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde came to him in a nightmare. Fanny woke him from the dream, and he jotted down as much as he could remember. For the next three days he worked incessantly, and completed the first draft. Fanny suggested that he revise it and present it as an allegory of contemporary Victorian morality.
Stevenson spent his last years living in Samoa with Fanny and Lloyd. He continued to write, even as his health continued to decline. In December of 1894, while working on Weir of Hermiston, he died.
Published Works: 1877 A Lodging for the Night, 1878 An Inland Voyage, 1879 Travels with a Donkey in Cevennes,1881 Virginibus Puerisque, 1882 Familiar Studies of Men and Books, 1882 New Arabian Nights,1883 Silverado Squatters, 1883 Treasure Island, 1885 A Child's Garden of Verses, 1885 The Body Snatcher, 1885 Prince Otto, 1886 The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, 1886 Kidnaped,1888 The Master of Ballantrae, 1892 The Wrecker (in collaboration with his stepson, Lloyd Osbourne),1893 Island Nights Entertainment, 1893 Catriona, 1894 Weir of Hermiston (uncompleted)
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