Robert Louis Stevenson

(image from Wikipedia)

In 44 years, Robert Louis Stevenson crammed a rich and full lifetime.

Born Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1850, the only child of Thomas Stevenson and Margaret Balfour.  At the age of 18, he changed his name to Robert Louis Stevenson.  Who knows why? Perhaps it was just because he could.

Lighthouses were to figure prominently in Stevenson's life but they were not at times the guiding light that could be imagined. His father, grandfather and great grandfather were all renowned lighthouse designers and engineers.  From them he inherited a love of travel and adventure on both the open road and the open sea.  He did not, however, inherit their love for engineering.

From his mother he inherited weak lungs (later thought to be tuberculosis) and often succumbed to ill health during the cold, damp winter months of Scotland.  Absent from school for long periods, private tutors were brought to his home and a nurse would spend long hours by his bedside reading from the Bible.  He would refer to these times of confinement in his bed as “the land of the counterpane”. 

Lewis Balfour, his maternal grandfather, was a professor of moral philosophy and a minister.  It was in his house that Stevenson spent a good deal of his childhood holidays.  Stevenson wrote,

"Now I often wonder what I inherited from this old minister. I must suppose, indeed, that he was fond of preaching sermons, and so am I, though I never heard it maintained that either of us loved to hear them."

Although late to learn to read at around seven years of age, Stevenson, soon discovered a love for writing stories.  His father was proud of his son's interest in writing as he himself had also enjoyed writing as a child; at least until his father had told him to stop wasting time on nonsense.

At the age of 17, he began studying engineering at the University of Edinburgh.  But from the outset he had no enthusiasm for the world of engineering.  He avoided lectures and found only the social aspects of university of any interest.

Each vacation, Stevenson would travel with his father to tour engineering works.  He enjoyed the travel, of course not for the engineering aspect, but for the material that travelling would give him for his writing; wonderful stories about the coast and islands which they visited would fill his head. 

In 1871, at the age of 21, Stevenson finally found the courage to tell his father that he would not be following him into the family business; that he wished to pursue a career in writing.  His father, although bitterly disappointed, was resigned to his son’s decision but thought it would be very wise for him to finish a law degree.  Stevenson agreed and four years later he passed the examinations for admission to the bar. 

Later, Stevenson was to reflect on turning away from the family business.  In his poetry collection Underwoods (1887) he wrote:

Say not of me that weakly I declined
The labours of my sires, and fled the sea,
The towers we founded and the lamps we lit,
To play at home with paper like a child.
But rather say: In the afternoon of time
A strenuous family dusted from its hands
The sand of granite, and beholding far
Along the sounding coast its pyramids
And tall memorials catch the dying sun,
Smiled well content, and to this childish task
Around the fire addressed its evening hours.

Stevenson now put his energy into travel and writing; all the while searching for somewhere to live that would improve his health.

A canoe expedition in Belgium and France provided the basis of his first real book, An Inland Voyage while other journeys were described in Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes. A swag of articles and essays also apeared in various magazines. 

All the while it seemed to his parents he was wasting his time, but in reality he was constantly broadening his knowledge of life and studying to perfect his style of writing.  He was emerging as "a man of letters".

In Paris in 1876, Stevenson met and fell in love with Fanny Osbourne but within a few short months she had to return home to California. On learning that she was sick and, against the advice of friends and without telling his parents, he set out to follow her.  He travelled steerage on the ship to both save money and also to heighten his adventure and learn how others travelled. From New York City he travelled overland by train to California. The journey later recounted in  The Amateur Emigrant  and Across the Plains. The journey took its toll on Stevenson and his health deteriorated so much so that he was near death when he arrived in Monterey.  After being cared for by some ranchers, his health had returned enough by late 1879 and he was able to continue his journey to San Francisco.   But ill-health was to find him again very soon after battling to support himself through his writing and living on just 45 cents a day.  By the end of winter, he was once more very close to death.

By now Fanny had recovered from her own illness and she was also now officially divorced from her husband.  She came to nurse Stevenson back to good health and Stevenson’s father, when he heard of his son’s bad health, cabled him money to help him through.

Stevenson married Fanny in May 1880 and with his new wife and her son they spent a summer honeymoon in the Napa Valley at an abandoned mining camp; an experience that lead to the publication of The Silverado Squatters. A few months later he and his new family sailed from New York to Great Britain where Fanny quickly endeared herself to his parents and managed to patch things up between father and son.

The next seven years were spent searching for a place to live where his health would improve.  They spent summers between Scotland and England; and  winters in France.  It was in France that he was most happy for a time and wrote,

"I have so many things to make life sweet for me, it seems a pity I cannot have that other one thing - health. But though you will be angry to hear it, I believe, for myself at least, that is best. I believed it all through my worst days, and I am not ashamed to profess it now."

Optimism kept him going through his illness and he continued to write.  It was during this period  that he wrote some of his best known work.

The idea for his first novel, Treasure Island, came when he was drawing a treasure map with his 12-year-old stepson.  The novel was published in 1883.  The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde followed three years later.  That same year, Kidnapped, was also published.  He also produced two volumes of verse, A Child’s Garden of Verses and Underwoods.  At the age of 36 his literary career was well and truly established.

After his father's death in 1887, Stevenson felt free to follow the advice of his doctor and seek a complete change of climate.  He intended to move his mother and family to Colorado but when they arrived in New York, they decided to spend the bitterly cold winter at Saranac Lake where he wrote some of his best essays, including Pulvis et Umbra. It was here that he began The Master of Ballantrae, and also planned a cruise to the southern Pacific Ocean for the following summer.

"The proudest moments of my life," he wrote, "have been passed in the stern-sheets of a boat with that romantic garment over my shoulders."

He set off with his family for the South Pacific in June 1888 in a chartered yacht that "ploughed her path of snow across the empty deep, far from any hand of help".

With the thrill of adventure and the fresh, sea air, Stevenson's health seemed restored.  During the next three years, he visited many island groups including Tahiti and Samoa; and spent an extended time in the Hawaiian Islands where he became a good friend of King David Kalakaua. He also became very good friends with the king's niece, Princess Victoria Kaiulani, also of Scottish heritage.

During this period he completed The Master of Ballantrae, composed two ballads based on the legends of the islanders, and wrote The Bottle Imp. The experience of these years is preserved in his various letters and In The South Seas.

His health improved markedly in the warmer climate and in 1890 he purchased 400 acres in Upolu, one of the islands of Samoa. He named the estate, Vailima (Five Rivers).   He worked hard on the estate, clearing his land, building his house and all the while continuing to write.  He also helped the Samoans.  They would consult Stevenson for advice and his influence grew strong among the islanders.  He became involved in the politics of the island and respect for him grew even stronger.

Villa Vailima - Samoa

Stevenson was friendly with some of the politicians and their families.  The daughter of the American Land Commissioner, Henry Clay Ide, had a birthday on Christmas Day and because her family didn’t celebrate it, he formally gave her his birthday, by deed of gift.  A strong bond followed between the Stevenson and Ide families.

Stevenson's sick bed in Villa Vailima

Through all of this, Stevenson continued to find time for his writing and wrote many novels on the South Seas and adopted the Samoan name of Tusitala … the Teller of Tales.

In 1894 Stevenson suffered a bout of depression and worried that he might again become helpless with illness.  He rebelled against this idea: “I wish to die in my boots; no more Land of Counterpane for me. To be drowned, to be shot, to be thrown from a horse – ay, to be hanged, rather than pass again through that slow dissolution.”  He then quickly found his energy again and began writing, Weir of Hermiston, which many consider his best novel, even though it was not finished …

“It’s so good that it frightens me,” he is said to have exclaimed. “sick and well, I have had splendid life of it, grudge nothing, regret very little ... take it all over, damnation and all, would hardly change with any man of my time.”

Robert Louis Stevenson died on the evening of 3 December 1894. That morning he had worked hard on his novel, Weir of Hermiston, and during the evening, when chatting with his wife and straining to open a bottle of wine, he suddenly exclaimed, “What’s that!” and then asked his wife, “Does my face look strange?”  It was then that he collapsed beside her and died a few hours later.

Robert Louis Stevenson, Tusitala, was carried several very steep miles to the top of Mount Vaea on the shoulders of the Samoans.  His tomb is perched high above his home and overlooks the sea, facing towards his beloved Scotland.  He was buried in his boots.  His tomb was inscribed with his Requiem …

(Reading by Kate)  

The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson

Travel

• Essays of Travel
• An Inland Voyage [1878]
• Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes [1879]
• The Amateur Emigrant [1879]
• Across the Plains [1879]
• The Old Pacific Capital [1880]
• The Silverado Squatters [1883]
• The Sea Fogs
• A Footnote to History: Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa [1892]
• In the South Seas [1896]

Romances

• Treasure Island [1882]
• Prince Otto [1885]
• Kidnapped [1886]
• Catriona [1892]
• The Master of Ballantrae [1888]
• The Black Arrow [1888]
• St Ives [1894]
• Weir of Hermiston [1896]

Tales and Fantasies

• A Lodging for the Night : a story of Francis Villon [1877]
• The Sire de Maletroit's Door [1877]
• New Arabian Nights [1878]
• Providence and the Guitar [1878]
• The Story of a Lie [1879]
• The Pavilion on the Links [1880]
• The Dynamiter (in collaboration with Fanny Van de Grift Stevenson) [1883]
• The Merry Men [1882]
• Will O' the Mill [1887]
• Markheim [1885]
• Thrawn Janet [1887]
• Olalla [1887]
• The Treasure of Franchard [1887]
• The Body-Snatcher [1885]
• The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde [1886]
• The Misadventures of John Nicholson [1887]
• The Wrong Box (written with Lloyd Osbourne) [1889]
• Fables [1896]

South Seas Tales

• Island Nights' Entertainment [1891-3]
• The Wrecker (written with with Lloyd Osbourne) [1892]
• The Ebb-Tide (written with Lloyd Osbourne) [1894]

Poetry

• Ballads
• A Child's Garden of Verses
• Songs of Travel and other verses
• New Poems
• Moral Emblems
• Underwoods [1887]
• A Lowden Sabbath Morn
• Prayers Written at Vailima

Essays, Letters

• Collected Essays
• The Art of Writing
• Familiar Studies of Men & Books
• The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson
• Vailima Letters
• Virginibus Puerisque [1881]
• Edinburgh Picturesque Notes
• Memories and Portraits [1887]
• Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin [1887]
• Lay Morals and other papers [1911]

Images by Kate except where noted

References:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Louis_Stevenson