Robert Louis Stevenson Nationality: Scottish Birth Date: November 13, 1850 Death Date: December 3, 1894 Genre(s): NOVELS; POETRY

Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson was born in Edinburgh. He was the only son of Thomas Stevenson, a prosperous joint-engineer to the Board of Northern Lighthouses, and Margaret Balfour, daughter of a Scottish clergyman. Thomas Stevenson invented, among others, the marine dynamometer, which measures the force of waves. Thomas's grandfather was Britain's greatest builder of lighthouses.

Stevenson was largely raised by his nanny, Alison Cunningham, whom he devoted A CHILD'S GARDEN OF VERSES (1885). Since his childhood, Stevenson suffered from tuberculosis. During his early years, he spent much of his time in bed, composing stories before he had learned to read. At the age of sixteen he produced a short historical tale. As an adult, there were times when Stevenson could not wear a jacket for fear of bringing on a hemorrhage of the lung. In 1867 he entered Edinburgh University to study engineering. Due to his ill health, he had to abandon his plans to follow in his father's footsteps. Stevenson changed to law and in 1875 he was called to the Scottish bar. By then he had already started to write travel sketches, essays, and short stories for magazines. His first articles were published in The Edinburgh University Magazine (1871) and The Portofolio (1873

Stevenson gained first fame with the romantic adventure story TREASURE ISLAND, which appeared first serialized in Young Folks Before it was published in book form Stevenson revised the text. /

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, published in January of 1886, sold 40,000 copies in six months in Britain. Stevenson said later that its plot was revealed to him in a dream. The mystery of Jekyll and Hyde is gradually revealed through the narratives of Mr Enfield, Mr Utterson, Dr Lanyon, and Jekyll's butler Poole. Utterson, Jekyll's lawyer, discovers that the nasty Mr. Edward Hyde is the heir of Dr. Jekyll's fortune. Hyde is suspected of a murder. Utterson and Poole break into Jekyll's laboratory and find the lifeless Hyde.

Two documents explain the mystery: Jekyll's old friend, the late Dr. Lanyon, tells that Jekyll and Hyde are the same person. In his own account Jekyll tells that to separate the good and evil aspects of his nature, he invented a transforming drug. His evil self takes the form of the repulsive Mr Hyde. Jekyll's supplies of drugs run out and he finds himself slipping involuntarily into being Hyde. Jekyll kills himself, but the last words of the confession are written by his alter ego: "Here then, as I lay down the pen and proceed to seal up my confession, I bring the life of that unhappy Dr. Jekyll to an end."

Stevenson died of a brain hemorrhage on December 3, 1894

/frameset.html?info=true&queryText=Treasure+Island

RLS in Sydney, 1893, together with his wife (Fanny Stevenson), his stepdaughter (Isobel Strong, Fanny's daughter by her first marriage) and his mother (Margaret Stevenson) (1893: 2i) [The Writers' Museum, Edinburgh]