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Robert Lewis Stevenson (later to change his
name to Louis) was born on 13th November, 1850 in Edinburgh to Thomas
Stevenson, an engineer responsible for building many of the lighthouses around
the coast of Scotland, and to Margaret Isabelle Balfour, who came from a
respectable family of lawyers and church ministers.
When Robert was seventeen, he studied engineering at
Edinburgh University with the aim of following in the footsteps of his father and
joining his firm. But this was not to be and he gave up the course and took to
studying law instead. In 1875 he completed his studies and became an advocate.
By this time he knew that his interest lay in writing and he decided not to
practice as a lawyer, but to become a writer. In the summer vacations at his
university he traveled to France to be in the company of other artists, painters
and writers and later published his work, an essay called ‘Roads’. His
earlier volumes were works of travel writings. ‘The Inland Voyage’ published
in 1878 and his first published volume, is about the journey, which he made from
Antwerp to France and his thoughts on life and society of his times. |
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In 1876, Stevenson met his future wife Fanny at Grez, a
village South East of Paris. Fanny was eleven years his senior. She was a modern
American woman who was separated from her husband and the mother of two
children. He immigrated two years later to California when she finally obtained
a divorce from her husband. His next book ‘ The Amateur Immigrant’ written
in 1879 describes his experience of this journey to California.
In 1877 Stevenson published his first fictional Narrative
‘A Lodging for the Night’ followed by other short stories like ‘The Sire
de Maletroit’s Door’, ‘Providence and the Guitar’ and ‘The Pavillion
on the Links.’ These were originally published as short stories in a magazine and
later on compiled as a volume entitled as ‘New Arabian Nights’. These were
followed by ‘The Latter Arabian Nights’, a collection of seven linked
stories published in 1878. These are considered as the most unique of his works.
Stevenson continued writing short stories throughout his life and all his
notable short stories were collected in a book titled ‘The Merry Men and
other Tales and Fables' published in 1887.
Stevenson wrote one of his most famous books ‘Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde’ in 1886, during a period of poor health and low finances.
Another of his well-known books is ‘Treasure Island’, written in 1881 when
on a holiday in Scotland. The inhospitable weather forced the family to stay
indoors. On one of these days, Stevenson’s stepson, twelve-year-old Lloyd drew
an imaginary map of ‘Treasure Island’. This gave Stevenson the stimulation
he required to write ‘Treasure Island’, which was first written as an
entertainment for his family. This was the first book, which he wrote for
children, which made him a popular and rich writer. Other works later followed
these like ’A Child’s Garden of Verses’, ‘The Black Arrow’,
‘Kidnapped’ and ‘Catriona’. Though these were all first published in a
magazine for children they were also intended and enjoyed by adults as well.
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