STEVENSON, ROBERT Louis (properly ROB ERT LEWIS BALFOUR) ( 1850-94). A Scottish romancer, essayist, and poet, born in Edinburgh, November l3, 1S50, the only son, of Thomas Stevenson, a distinguished lighthouse engineer. After beginning his education at various schools and under private tutors, he entered Edinburgh University in 1867, with the intention of be coming an engineer. On this profession he turned his back in 1871, and prepared for the bar, to which he was called in 1875. He had already written several essays and tales and some verse, but chiefly with a view of. in his own forcible phrase, "playing the sedulous ape" to the great masters. His strong bent to a lit erary career was now encouraged by the friend ship of such men as Edmund Gosse, Andrew Lang, and Sidney Colvin, whom he met in Lon don. A canoeing trip in Belginm and France and a walking tour in the Cdvennes furnished material for An. Inland Voyage (1878) and Travels with a Donkey (1379), sketches in which he gave full proof of his exquisite literary art. Without attracting much attention, he was con tributing to the Cornhill Magazine and Temple Bar short stories, and some of his best essays, those which were afterwards collected under the titles of Virginibus Puerisque (1881) and Familiar Studies of Men and Books (1882). To this period also belong the fascinating, fan tastic New Arabian. Nights (1882), first pub lished between 1S76 and 1S78. In 1876 he had met, in an artistic colony near Paris, Mrs. Osbourne, an American lady, who was after wards to be his wife. In 1879, bearing from California that she was seriously ill, he made up his mind to go there. His resources were so limited that he made the long journey in an emigrant ship and train, noting his curious ex periences and publishing them afterwards in The Amateur Emigrant (1894) and Across the Plains (1892). He spent two years in Cali fornia, often in very delicate health, and in 1880 married Mrs. Osbourne. The next few years were spent in various health resorts— Davos, the Riviera, Bournemouth, and the Adi rondacks. Often under the most discouraging
conditions, but with that brave cheerfulness which was the distinguishing note of his char acter, he worked incessantly. Success first came to him with the publication in 1883 of Treasure Island, a tale of pure adventure. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), a striking ethical parable un der the guise of fiction, attracted the more thoughtful and was recommended from many a pulpit. In the same year appeared Kidnapped, which, with its sequel David Balfour (1893) and the Master of Ballantrae (1889), offered vivid pictures of the Scottish life of the past. In 1888, still in quest of health, he left San Francisco with his family on a voyage to the South Seas. Pleased with the scenery and the people of Samoa, he made a permanent home for himself there in 1890 and acquired a position of commanding influence among the natives. After an heroic struggle against consumption, he died, through the rupture of a blood-vessel in the brain, December 3, 1894, and was buried on the peak of Mount Vaea, above Vailima, his Samoan home. Active to the last, he left several manu scripts, among which were two romances, Weir of Hermiston (1896) and St. Ives (completed by Quiller-Couch, 1897). The former, which no writer was bold enough to touch, is generally considered, even in its unfinished state, Steven son's masterpiece. Others of his works which deserve special mention are: The Silvcrado Squatters (1883); Prince Otto (1885), a dainty romantic tale; three books written in collabo ration with his stepson, Lloyd Osbourne, The Wrong Box (188S), The Wrecker (1892), and The Ebb Tide (1894) ; a volume of exquisite verse, Under/roods (1887) ; A Child's Garden of Verses (1885) ; The Merry Men and Other Tales (1886), a volume of short stories in which his mastery over the grim and terrible best shows itself ; Memoir of Fleming Jerkin (HST) ; and Father Damien, an Open Letter (pamphlet, 1890), unique among Stevenson's writings, and one of the most powerful apologia in English.