Treasure Island (Author Biography)

Author Biography

Robert Louis Stevenson was born in 1850 in Edinburgh, Scotland, the only son of a famed engineer and inventor. Stevenson's grandfather was also an engineer, known around the world for the many beautiful lighthouses he designed. The family expected the young Stevenson to follow in his grandfather's and his father's footsteps. But in his earliest years, Stevenson suffered from a lung disease and spent much time in bed. To pass the time, he made up stories. Some of the earliest literary influences, authors he tried to mimic, included Daniel Defoe (Robinson Crusoe, 1719), Edgar Allan Poe ("The Raven," 1845), and Nathaniel Hawthorne (Scarlet Letter, 1850).

When it came time to go to university, Stevenson enrolled in engineering classes but later changed his mind. He was more interested in literature. Stevenson's father did not approve of his son's writing, however, and insisted that Stevenson gain a more respected and more practical degree. So Stevenson studied law and passed the bar in 1875, but he never practiced. Instead, he began to write in earnest, publishing several short stories, essays, and travel sketches, which were only modestly successful and did not provide him with enough money to pay all his bills. So his father continued to support him well through his twenties.

Stevenson's travel sketches were the byproduct of his hopes of finding a climate that would prove more beneficial for his health. While he was in Paris, where he found some relief in the warmer climate, he also found the woman who would later become his wife. Fanny Osbourne, an American, was older than Stevenson, was married and the mother of three children, and was apparently the inspiration of Stevenson's life and literary career. In 1879, three years after they met, Osbourne obtained a divorce, and she and Stevenson were married. He was twenty-nine; she was forty.

The couple traveled throughout Europe and the United States, still looking for a place that suited Stevenson's frail health. But it was during a visit to Scotland that Stevenson wrote Treasure Island, which first appeared in serialized form in a magazine between 1881 and 1882, before it was published as a book. Treasure Island finally made a name for Stevenson and provided him with a livable wage. The book also won the approval of Stevenson's father, who finally accepted his son's chosen vocation.

After living in Scotland for a short time, Stevenson and his wife moved to London. This move proved beneficial for Stevenson's career, as it was during this time that he made friends with the author Henry James and other literary figures. While in London, Stevenson wrote two more texts, which, together with Treasure Island became his most famous works. They were The StrangeCase of Dr. Jekyll and Mister Hyde (1886) and Kidnapped (1886).

Two years later, the Stevensons discovered the island of Samoa, which provided a tropical setting that suited Stevenson's health and the place in which he produced a very large collection of poems, short stories, essays, and novels before his early death. On December 3, 1894, while helping his wife fix dinner, Stevenson died of a brain hemorrhage. When his neighbors in Samoa heard the tragic news, they grabbed axes and machetes and cut a trail up the mountainside behind his house so as to honor Stevenson's final wish to be buried at the top of Mount Vaea.