Robert Louis Stevenson

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Image:Robertlouisstevensonportrait.jpg Robert Louis (Balfour) Stevenson (November 13, 1850 – December 3, 1894), was a Scottish novelist, poet, and travel writer, a leading representative of Neo-romanticism in English literature. He was the man who "seemed to pick the right word up on the point of his pen, like a man playing spillikins", as G. K. Chesterton put it.

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Early life

Stevenson was born Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson, in Edinburgh, Scotland, on November 13, 1850. His father was Thomas Stevenson, and grandfather was Robert Stevenson, all distinguished lighthouse keepers and inventors, as was his great-grandfather. It was from this side of the family that he inherited his love of adventure, joy of the sea and for the open road. His maternal grandfather, Louis Balfour, was a professor of Moral Philosophy and a Minister, and it was in his house that he spent the greater part of his boyhood. "Now I often wonder", says Stevenson, "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." From his mother, Margaret Balfour, he inherited weak lungs (perhaps tuberculosis), that kept him constantly in "the land of the counterpane" during the winter, where his nurse spent long hours by his bedside reading from the Bible, and lives of the old Covenanters. During the summer he was encouraged to play outside proving to be a wild and care-free child and by the age of eleven his health had improved so that his parents prepared him for the University of Edinburgh by attending Edinburgh Academy, planning for him to follow his father as a lighthouse keeper. During this period he read widely and enjoyed especially Shakespeare, Walter Scott, John Bunyan and The Arabian Knights.

He entered the University of Edinburgh at age seventeen but soon discovered he had neither the scientific mind nor physical endurance to succeed as an engineer. When his father took him for a voyage he found - instead of being interested in lighthouse construction - that his mind was teeming with wonderful romances about the coast and islands which they visited. Although his father was stern, he finally allowed him to decide upon a career in literature - but first he thought it wise to finish a degree in law, so that he might have something to fall back upon. Stevenson followed this course and by the age of twenty-five passed the examinations for admission to the bar, though not until he had nearly ruined his health through work and worry. His fathers lack of understanding led him to write the following protest:

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.
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Marriage and travels

The next four years were spent mostly in travel, and in search of a climate that would be more beneficial for his health. He made long and frequent trips to Fontainebleau, Barbizon, Grez, and Nemours, becoming a member of the artists colonies there. He made frequent trips to Paris visiting galleries and the theaters. It was during this period he first met his future wife Mrs. Osbourne, and made most of his lasting friends. Among these included Sidney Colvin, his biographer and literary agent; William Henley, a collaborator in dramatic composition; Mrs. Sitwell, who helped him through a religious crisis; Andrew Lang, Edmund Gosse, and Leslie Stephen, all writers and critics. He also made the journeys described in An Inland Voyage and Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes. In addition he wrote twenty or more articles and essays which appeared in various magazines. Although it seemed to his parents he was wasting his time and being idle, he was in reality constantly studying to perfect his style of writing and broaden his knowledge of life, emerging as a man of letters.

When Stevenson and Fanny Vandegrift Osbourne met in France in 1879 it was love at first sight. A few months later when she returned to her home in San Francisco, California, Stevenson was determined to follow when he learned that she was sick. His friends advised against the journey; and knowing his fathers temper, he sailed without even notifying his parents. He took steerage passage on the Devonian in part to save money but also to learn how others traveled and increase the adventure of the journey. From New York City he traveled overland by train to California. He later wrote about the experiences in An Amateur Emigrant and Across the Plains. Although it was good experience for his literature, it broke his health, arriving near death in Monterey. He was nursed back to his feet by some ranchers there.

In December 1879 he had recovered his health enough to continue on to San Francisco, where for several months he struggled "all alone on forty-five cents a day, and sometimes less, with quantities of hard work and many thoughts," in an effort to support himself through his writing; but by the end of the winter his health was broken again, and he found himself at death's door. Mrs. Osbourne - now officially divorced from her husband and recovered from her own illness - came to Stevenson's bedside and nursed him to recovery. "After a while," he wrote, "my spirit got up again in divine frenzy, and has since kicked and spurred my vile body forward with great emphasis and success." When his father heard of his condition he cabled him money to help him through this period.

In May, 1880, he was married, when, as he says, he was "a mere complication of cough and bones, much fitter for an emblem of mortality than a bridegroom." With his new wife and her son, Lloyd, he went into the mountains north of San Francisco in Napa Valley, and spent a summer honeymoon at an abandoned mining camp; this experience he published in The Silverado Squatters. At one point he met Charles Warren Stoddard, co-editor of the Overland Monthly and author of South Sea Idylls, who urged Stevenson to travel to the south Pacific, an idea which would return to him many years later. In August of 1880 he sailed from New York with his family back to Great Britain, and found his parents and his friend Sidney Colvin, on the wharf at Liverpool happy to see him return home. Gradually Mrs. Stevenson was able to patch up differences between father and son and make herself a part of the new family through her charm and wit.

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Journey to the Pacific

For the next seven years between 1880 and 1887 Stevenson searched in vain for a place of residence suitable to his state of health. He spent his summers at various places in Scotland and England; for his winters, he escaped to sunny France, and lived at Davos-Platz and the Chalet de Solitude at Hyeres, where, for a time, he enjoyed almost complete happiness. "I have so many things to make life sweet for me," he wrote, "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." In spite of the blood on his handkerchief and the medicine bottle at his elbow, his optimistic spirit kept him going, and he produced the bulk of his best known work: Treasure Island, his first widely popular book; Kidnapped; Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the story which established his reputation among a large class of readers; and two volumes of verse, A Child's Garden of Verses and Underwoods.

On the death of his father in 1887, Stevenson felt free to follow the advice of his physician to try a complete change of climate. He started with his mother and family for Colorado; but after landing in New York it was decided to spend the winter at Saranac Lake, in the Adirondacks. During the intensely cold winter Stevenson wrote a number of his best essays, including Pulvis et Umbra, he began The Master of Ballantrae, and lightheartedly planned, for the following summer, a cruise to the southern Pacific Ocean. "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."

In June, 1888, Stevenson chartered the yacht Casco, and with his family, set sail from San Francisco. The vessel "ploughed her path of snow across the empty deep, far from any hand of help." The salt sea air and thrill of adventure for a time restored his health; and for nearly three years he wandered the eastern and central Pacific, visiting important island groups, stopping for extended stays at the Hawaiian Islands where he became a good friend of King David Kalakaua with whom Stevenson spent much time. Stevenson also became best friends with the king's niece Princess Victoria Kaiulani, also of Scottish heritage. They also spent time at the Gilbert Islands, Tahiti and the Samoan Islands. 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 are preserved in his various letters and in The South Seas.

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Last years

In 1890 he purchased four-hundred acres of land in Upolu, one of the Samoan Islands. Here, after two aborted attempts to visit Scotland, he established himself, after much labor, upon his estate, which he named Vailima ("Five Rivers"). His influence spread to the natives who consulted him on things in their lives and he soon became involved in local politics. He was convinced the European officials appointed to rule the natives were incompetent, and after many futile attempts to resolve the matter, he published A Footnote to History. This was such a stinging protest against existing conditions that it resulted in the recall of two officials, and Stevenson feared for a time it would result in his own deportation. When thing had finally blow over he wrote a friend, "I used to think meanly of the plumber; but now she shines beside the politician."

In addition to building his house and clearing his land and helping the natives in many ways, he found time to work continuously at his writing. In his enthusiasm, he felt that "there was never any man had so many irons in the fire." He wrote The Beach of Felesa, David Balfour, and Ebb Tide, as well as the Vailima Letters, during this period.

For a time during the summer of 1894 Stevenson felt depressed; he wondered if he had not exhausted his creative vein and completely worked himself out. He wrote that he had "overworked bitterly". He felt more clearly, with each fresh attempt, that the best he could write was "ditch water". He even feared that he might again become a helpless invalid. Against this idea he rebelled: "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." Then suddenly he had a return of his old energy and he began work on Weir of Hermiston. "It's so good that it frightens me," he is reported to have exclaimed. He felt that this was the best work he had done. He was convinced, "sick and well, I have had splendid life of it, grudge nothing, regret very little ... take it all over, I would hardly change with any man of my time."

Without knowing it he was to have his wish fulfilled. During the morning of December 3, 1894, he had worked hard as usual on Weir of Hermiston. During the evening while conversing with his wife and straining to open a bottle of wine, he suddenly fell to the ground, saying his face had changed to another's. He died within a few hours, probably of a cerebral hemorrhage, at the age of 44. The natives insisted on surrounding his body with a watch-guard during the night, and on bearing their Tusitala (Samoan language for "Teller of Tales") several miles upon their shoulders to the top of a cliff overlooking the sea, he was buried.

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Fiction

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Short stories and other works

  • Familiar Studies of Men and Books (1882)
  • Virginibus Puerisque, and Other Papers (1881)
  • Markheim (1884), a short story about an encounter with a strange unknown man that saves another soul.
  • The Body Snatcher (1885), an influential horror tale, made into a film version in 1945.
  • Memories and Portraits (1887), a collection of essays.
  • Father Damien: an Open Letter to the Rev. Dr. Hyde of Honolulu (1890)
  • Vailima Letters (1895)
  • St. Ives: being the Adventures of a French Prisoner in England (1897)
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Poetry

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Travel writing

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Island literature

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.

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Non-fiction works on the Pacific

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Island fiction

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Works in Scots

Stevenson also wrote poetry and prose in Scots. See ScotsteXt

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Musical Compositions

Stevenson was an amateur composer who wrote songs typical of California in the 1880s, salon-type music, entertaining rather than serious. A flageolet player, Stevenson had studied harmony and simple counterpoint and knew such basic instrumental techniques as transposition. Some song titles include Fanfare, Tune for Flageolet, Habanera, Quadrille. Robert Hughes in 1968 arranged for chamber orchestra a number of Stevenson's songs, which went on a tour of the Pacific Northwest in that year. [1]

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Further reading

Claire Harman, Robert Louis Stevenson: A Biography, HarperCollins, ISBN 0007113218 [reviewed by Matthew Sturgis in Times Literary Supplement, 11 March 2005, page 8]

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Sources

  • Bowman, James Cloyd (1918). An Inland Voyage and Travels with a Donkey.
  • O'Brien, Robert - This is San Francisco, 1948, reprint Chronicle Books 1994
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External links

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