Robert Louis (Balfour) Stevenson (born
November 13,
1850, died
December 3,
1894),
novelist,
poet, travel
writer, born in
Edinburgh,
Scotland. Although ill with
tuberculosis from childhood, Stevenson had a full life. As a son of the famous
lighthouse-building family, he began as an engineer (his lighthouse designs were much praised), but turned to law because his
health was poor, though he never practiced. He ended as a
tribal leader (called by his tribe
Tusitala) and plantation owner in
Samoa, all this in addition to his literary career.
Stevenson's novels of adventure, romance, and horror are of considerable psychological depth and have continued in popularity long after his death, both as books and as films.
His wife Fanny (née Osbourne) was a great support in his adventurous and arduous life.
- Treasure Island (1882) His first major success, a tale of piracy, buried treasure, and adventure, has been filmed frequently (Project Gutenberg text: [1] (http://promo.net/cgi-promo/pg/t9.cgi?entry=120)). It was originally called The Sea-Cook.
- Kidnapped (1887) is an historical novel that tells of the boy David Balfour's pursuit of his inheritance and his alliance with Alan Breck in the intrigues of Jacobite troubles between England and Scotland. Catriona (1893) is a sequel, telling of Balfour's further adventures.
- The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) , a short novel about a dual personality much depicted in plays and films, also influential in the growth of understanding of the subconscious mind through its treatment of a kind and intelligent physician who turns into a psychotic monster after imbibing a drug intended to separate good from evil in a personality. Project Gutenberg text: [2] (http://promo.net/cgi-promo/pg/t9.cgi?entry=43)
- The New Arabian Nights (1882), a collection of tales.
- The Body Snatcher (1885), another influential horror novel.
- The Wrong Box, (1892), with Lloyd Osbourne, a comic novel of a tontine, also filmed (1966). A tontine is a group life-insurance policy in which the last survivor gets all the insurance. Both in the novel and in real life, it is an incentive to murder, and no longer legal in most countries.
- The Master of Ballantrae (1888), a masterful tale of revenge, set in Scotland and America.
- Wier of Hermiston (1896), novel, unfinished at his death, considered to have promised great artistic growth.
- A Child's Garden of Verses (1885), written for children but also popular with their parents. Includes such favorites as "My Shadow' and "The Lamplighter". Often thought to represent a positive reflection of the author's sickly childhood.
Although not well known, his island fiction and non-fiction is among the most valuable and collected of the
19th century body of
work that addresses the Pacific area.
- In the South Seas. Collection of Stevenson's articles and essays on his travels in the Pacific. Project Gutenberg text: [3] (http://digital.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=464)
- A Footnote to History, Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa
- The Beach at Falesa, one of his most mature works, it explores the relationship between white traders and islanders in a way that anticipates Conrad and Maugham.
- An Island Nights' Entertainment. Three great stories: The Bottle Imp, The Beach at Falesá and The Isle of Voices.
- The Wrecker with Lloyd Osbourne
- The Ebb Tide with Lloyd Osbourne
e-texts of some of Robert Louis Stevenson's works:
