He lived there for the rest of his life, writing novels, essays, and poetry and traveling among the islands. Thus, he chartered a yacht and sailed for the South Seas.

In August 1887, Stevenson and his family sailed for America, where he found himself famous. Hyde (1886), more commonly referred to as Dr. His best-known novels, Treasure Island and Kidnapped, are both products of this period, as is The Strange Case of Dr. All this time, however, he continued to write and publish. He tried living in England, but the climate there was also bad for him. Soon afterward, the couple sailed for Scotland.įor some time, the Stevensons lived in Switzerland because of Robert's bad health, but still he continued to suffer from bouts of severe respiratory illness he returned to the Scottish Highlands, but became critically ill with a lung hemorrhage. It was not long, however, before they received a telegram from Stevenson's father, relenting and offering them financial support. They were married early in 1880 and honeymooned on the site of an abandoned silver mine. Stevenson barely managed to eke out a living and was ill much of the time. It was not an easy time for the young lovers. He arrived there in 1879, very ill and very poor. Robert decided to follow Fanny to California. Osbourne returned to California, and the elder Stevensons felt that perhaps their son would come to his senses and forget the 'loose' American woman.

He fell in love with her, and much to the horror of his parents, he courted her for two years. While Stevenson was staying at Fontainebleau, in France, in 1876 (he was twenty-six), he met Fanny Osbourne, an American woman who was separated from her husband. He was always restless and curious about the world, and he never put down roots for long in any single location. In fact, many of his best-known writings use voyages and travels as their framework - Treasure Island and Kidnapped, for example - and Stevenson would travel for the rest of his life. This was the first of his many travels abroad, usually to France. When he was twenty-three, Stevenson developed a severe respiratory illness and was sent to the French Riviera to recuperate. He was a young rebel he thought that his parents' religion was an abomination, and he soon became known as a bohemian, ranting about bourgeois hypocrisy. His family expected him to become a lighthouse engineer, a family profession, but Stevenson agreed, as a compromise, to study law instead. When at last Stevenson was able to attend school, he did extremely well and entered the university at sixteen. He was a sickly youth, and an only son, for whom his parents had high hopes.

Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was born at Edinburgh, Scotland, on November 13, 1850.

Robert louis stevenson modestine