Bed in summer

Born: November 13, 1850 
Edinburgh, Scotland 
Died: December 3, 1894 
Upolu, Samoa 
Scottish writer

The Scottish novelist, essayist, and poet Robert Louis Stevenson was one of the most popular and highly praised British writers during the last part of the nineteenth century.

Robert Louis Stevenson was born on November 13, 1850, in Edinburgh, Scotland, the son of a noted lighthouse builder and harbor engineer. Though healthy at birth, Stevenson soon became a victim of constant breathing problems that later developed into tuberculosis, a sometimes fatal disease that attacks the lungs and bones. These persistent health problems made him extremely thin and weak most of his life.

By the time Stevenson entered Edinburgh University at the age of sixteen to study engineering, he had fallen under the spell of language and had begun to write. For

Robert Louis Stevenson. 
Courtesy of the

Library of Congress

.

several years he attended classes irregularly, developing a bohemian existence (an artistic lifestyle different than that of mainstream society), complete with long hair and velvet jackets. He also associated himself with Edinburgh's seedy and dangerous neighborhoods.

region.

Treasure Island (1881, 1883), first published as a series in a children's magazine, ranks as Stevenson's first popular book, and it established his fame. A perfect romance, according to Stevenson's formula, the novel tells the story of a boy's involvement with murderous pirates. Kidnapped(1886), set in Scotland during a time of great civil unrest, has the same charm. In its sequel, David Balfour (1893), Stevenson could not avoid psychological and moral problems without marked strain. In The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) he dealt directly with the nature of evil in man and the hideous effects that occur when man seeks to deny it. This work pointed the way toward Stevenson's more serious later novels. During this same period he published a very popular collection of poetry, A Child's Garden of Verses (1885).