STEVENSON Robert Louis

STEVENSON Robert Louis (born Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson; 13 November 1850 – 3 December 1894) was a Scottish novelist, essayist, poet, one of the masters of the Victorian adventure story. He was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on November 13, 1850. He enrolled at Edinburgh University at the age of seventeen. He became a qualified lawyer but did not pursue the profession, choosing instead to become a full-time writer. As a young man, he traveled through Europe, leading a bohemian lifestyle.

Stevenson published many short stories and books over the early part of his life, but his first taste of real success came in 1883 with the publication of Treasure Island, a pirate-themed adventure novel. In 1886 he published Kidnapped, the year that also saw the publication of Stevenson's most famous novel, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It sold 40,000 copies in six months, and ensured Stevenson’s fame as a writer.

By the late 1880s, Stevenson had become one of the leading lights of English literature. He traveled often, seeking to find a climate more amenable to the tuberculosis that haunted his later days. In 1888, a doctor advised Stevenson to move to a warmer climate for his health. Stevenson and his family set sail for the South Seas, arriving in Samoa and taking up residence there in 1889. There, he died suddenly in 1894, at the age of forty-four.