Illness was a recurrent feature of his adult life and left him extraordinarily thin. The family moved again to the sunnier 17 Heriot Row when Stevenson was six years old, but the tendency to extreme sickness in winter remained with him until he was 11. Stevenson inherited a tendency to coughs and fevers, exacerbated when the family moved to a damp, chilly house at 1 Inverleith Terrace in 1851. Lewis Balfour and his daughter both had weak chests, so they often needed to stay in warmer climates for their health.
"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." "Now I often wonder what I inherited from this old minister," Stevenson wrote. Stevenson spent the greater part of his boyhood holidays in his maternal grandfather's house. His mother's father Lewis Balfour (1777–1860) was a minister of the Church of Scotland at nearby Colinton, and her siblings included physician George William Balfour and marine engineer James Balfour. However, Robert's mother's family were gentry, tracing their lineage back to Alexander Balfour who had held the lands of Inchrye in Fife in the fifteenth century. Thomas's maternal grandfather Thomas Smith had been in the same profession. Lighthouse design was the family's profession Thomas's father (Robert's grandfather) was civil engineer Robert Stevenson, and Thomas's brothers (Robert's uncles) Alan and David were in the same field. At about age 18, he changed the spelling of "Lewis" to "Louis", and he dropped "Balfour" in 1873. He was christened Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson.
Stevenson was born at 8 Howard Place, Edinburgh, Scotland, on 13 November 1850 to Thomas Stevenson (1818–1887), a leading lighthouse engineer, and his wife, Margaret Isabella (born Balfour, 1829–1897). In 2018 he was ranked, just behind Charles Dickens, as the 26th-most-translated author in the world. Ī celebrity in his lifetime, Stevenson's critical reputation has fluctuated since his death, though today his works are held in general acclaim. He died in his island home in 1894 at age 44. In 1890, he settled in Samoa where, alarmed at increasing European and American influence in the South Sea islands, his writing turned away from romance and adventure fiction toward a darker realism. As a young man, he mixed in London literary circles, receiving encouragement from Andrew Lang, Edmund Gosse, Leslie Stephen and W. E. Henley, the last of whom may have provided the model for Long John Silver in Treasure Island.
He is best known for works such as Treasure Island, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Kidnapped and A Child's Garden of Verses.īorn and educated in Edinburgh, Stevenson suffered from serious bronchial trouble for much of his life, but continued to write prolifically and travel widely in defiance of his poor health. Robert Louis Stevenson (born Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson 13 November 1850 – 3 December 1894) was a Scottish novelist, essayist, poet and travel writer. Bound set of many of Stevenson's works, 1909
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