Robert Louis Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet and travel writer, of Victorian Age, and a representative of neo-romanticism in English literature. During his life he made many travels, which were very useful for the composition of some his work.
He was born on 13 November 1850, in Edinburgh, the son of Thomas Stevenson, a lighthouse engineer, and his wife Margaret.
The city of Stevenson’s birth was a source of inspiration to him all his life. But its damp climate contributed to the serious respiratory illness which began in his childhood.
Attended a variety of schools including the Edinburgh Academy, with frequent interruption because of ill-health.
At Edinburgh University, initially studying engineering to follow his father’s profession, changing to law in 1871. He was a founder of the Edinburgh University Magazine and already preoccupied with writing.
On holiday in France met Fanny Osborne. Fanny was an American, ten years Stevenson’s senior, with an unsatisfactory marriage and two children.
Stevenson seems to have fallen in love with at once!
In 1876 took a canoeing trip with his friend Sir Walter Simpson and, two years after, in 1878, the publication of “An Inland Voyage”, an account of the canoeing holiday.
Took a walking tour with a donkey in France, recorded in “travels with a donkey”.
In 1880 married Funny in San Francisco. Returned to Scotland to visit his parents.
Began writing “Treasure Island” Stevenson’s most famous work and first real popular success was inspired by a map of an imaginary island given to his step-son.
In 1884, in France, fell dangerously ill with severe pulmonary haemorrhage.
Between 1884 and 1887 he lives in England, on the south coast, for its climate and he public “The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde” in 1886.
In 1889 bought house and settled at Vailima, Western Samoa, more and more famous and quite wealthy. He buried in Samoa in 1894.
