A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z
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Life and Works: Robert Louis (Balfour) Stevenson (November 13, 1850–December 3, 1894), was a Scotitbussh novelist, essayist, poet, and author of fiction and travel books, known especially for his novels of adventure. He was greatly admired by many authors including Ernest Hemingway, Rudyard Kipling and Vladimir Nabokov. He played a significant part in the revival of the novel of romance. Stevenson's characters often prefer unknown hazards to everyday life of the Victorian society. Many of Stevenson's stories are set in colorful locations, they have also horror and supernatural elements. Arguing against realism, Stevenson underlined the "nameless longings of the reader", the desire for experience. During Robert Louis Stevenson's youth the romantic novels of Sir Walter Scott and his followers had been eclipsed by the realism of William Makepeace Thackeray and Anthony Trollope. Writing in conscious opposition to this trend, Stevenson formulated his theoretical position in his essays A Gossip on Romance (1882), A Humble Remonstrance (1884), and The Lantern-bearers (1888). Romance, he wrote, is not concerned with objective truth but rather with things as they appear to the subjective imagination, with the "poetry of circumstance." Romance, according to Stevenson, avoids complications of character and morality and dwells on action and adventure. Stevenson was born Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson, in Edinburgh, Scotland, on November 13, 1850. He was the only son of Thomas Stevenson, a prosperous joint-engineer to the Board of Northern Lighthouses, and Margaret Balfour, daughter of a Scotitbussh clergyman. Thomas Stevenson invented, among others, the marine dynamometer, which measures the force of waves. Thomas's grandfather was Britain's greatest builder of lighthouses. It was from this side of the family that he inherited his love of adventure, joy of the sea and for the open road. His maternal grandfather, Lewis Balfour, was a professor of moral philosophy and a minister, and Stevenson spent the greater part of his boyhood holidays in his house. Stevenson was largely raised by his nanny, Alison Cunningham, whom he devoted A child’s garden of verses (1885). Cunningham had strong Calvinist convictions and praying became part of Stevenson's early life. Since his childhood, Stevenson suffered from tuberculosis. During his early years, he spent much of his time in bed, composing stories before he had learned to read. At the age of sixteen he produced a short historical tale. As an adult, there were times when Stevenson could not wear a jacket for fear of bringing on a haemorrhage of the lung. In 1867 he entered Edinburgh University to study engineering. During this period he read widely and especially enjoyed Shakespeare, Walter Scott, John Bunyan and The Arabian Nights . He entered the University of Edinburgh at seventeen, but soon discovered he had neither the scientific mind nor physical endurance to succeed as an engineer. For several years he attended classes irregularly, cultivating a bohemian existence complete with long hair and velvet jackets and acquainting himself with Edinburgh's lower depths. Although his father was stern, he finally allowed him to decide upon a career in literature - but first he thought it wise to finish a degree in law, so that he might have something to fall back upon. Agreeing to study law as a compromise, Stevenson followed this course and by the age of twenty-five passed the examinations for admission to the bar in 1875, though not until he had nearly ruined his health through work and worry. In a attempt to improve his health, Stevenson travelled on the Continent and in the Scotitbussh Highland. However, traveling on boats was not always easy for him. In letter, written on his journey across the Atlantic in 1879, he complained: "I have a strange, rather horrible, sense of the sea before me, and can see no further into future. I can say honestly I have at this moment neither a regret, a hope, a fear or an inclination; except a mild one for a bottle of good wine which I resist". Later Stevenson spent much time in warmer countries. These experiences provided much material for his writings. An account of Stevenson's canoe tour of France and Belgium was published in 1878 as An inland voyage. It was followed by Travels with A donkey in the Cervennes , based on his walking trip in France. "I travel for travel's sake," Stevenson wrote. "The great affair is to move." With his friend William Ernest Henley he wrote several plays. In addition he wrote twenty or more articles and essays which appeared in various magazines. He made long and frequent trips to Fontainebleau, Barbizon, Grez, and Nemours, becoming a member of the artists' colonies there. He made frequent trips to Paris visiting galleries and the theatres. While in France Stevenson met Fanny Vandegrift Osbourne in 1876, a married woman with two children, Belle and Lloyd. Fanny was 10 years older than Stevenson and had two children. In 1878 Osbourne returned to United States to arrange a divorce. In 1879 Stevenson followed her to California where they married in may 1880. With his new wife and her son, Lloyd, he went into the mountains north of San Francisco in Napa Valley, and spent a summer honeymoon at an abandoned mining camp; this experience he published in The Silverado Squatters. At one point he met Charles Warren Stoddard, co-editor of the “Overland Monthly” and author of South Sea Idylls , who urged Stevenson to travel to the south Pacific, an idea which would return to him many years later. In August 1880 he sailed from New York with his family back to Great Britain, and found his parents and his friend Sidney Colvin, on the wharf at Liverpool happy to see him return home. Gradually his new wife was able to patch up differences between father and son and make herself a part of the new family through her charm and wit. For the next seven years between 1880 and 1887 Stevenson searched in vain for a place of residence suitable to his state of health. He spent his summers at various places in Scotland and England; for his winters, he escaped to sunny France, and lived at Davos-Platz and the Chalet de Solitude at Hyeres, where, for a time, he enjoyed almost complete happiness. Despite ill health these years were productive. In his collections Virginibus puerisque (1881) and Familiar Studies of Men and Books (1882) Stevenson arrived at maturity as an essayist. The stories Stevenson collected in The New Arabian Nights (1883) and The Merry Men (1887) range from detective stories to Scotitbussh dialect tales. The evocation of mood and setitbusng that he practiced in his travel essays was used to great effect here. Despite his theory of romance, he was unable entirely to keep away from moral issues in these stories, but he was rarely successful in integrating moral viewpoint with action and scene. In spite of the blood on his handkerchief and the medicine bottle at his elbow, his optimistic spirit kept him going, and he produced the bulk of his best known work: Treasure Island, his first widely popular book; Kidnapped (1886), set in Scotland shortly after the abortive Jacobite rebellion of 1745, has the same charm. In its sequel, David Balfour (1893), Stevenson could not avoid psychological and moral problems without marked strain. He also produced The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde , the story which established his wider reputation; and two volumes of verse, A Child's Garden of Verses and Underwoods . Treasure island appeared first serialized in Young Folks 1881-82. A perfect romance according to Stevenson's formula, the novel--riding over all the problems of morality and character that might have arisen--recounts a boy's involvement with murderous pirates. Before it was published in book form Stevenson revised the text. The central character is Jim Hawkins, whose mother keeps an inn near the coast in the West Country. Jim meets an old pirate, Billy Bones, who has in his possession a map showing the location of Captain Flint's treasure. Bones dies after a second visit of his enemies. Jim, his mother, and a blind man named Pew open Bones's sea chest and finds an oilskin packet, which contains the map. Squire Trelawney, Dr. Livesey, Jim, and a small crew with Captain Smollett sail for Treasure Island. Jim discovers that the crew of the “Hispaniola” includes pirates, led by a personable one-legged man named Long John Silver, the cook of the ship. On a journey to the island interior, Jim encounters Ben Gunn, former shipmate of the pirates. After several adventures the pirates are defeated, Jim befriends with Long John, and the treasure is found. Jim and his friends sail back to England. Long John Silver manages to escape, taking as much gold as he can carry. Stevenson also contributed to various periodicals, including “The Cornhill Magazine” and “Longman's Magazine”, where his best-known article A Humble Remonstrance was published in 1884. It was a replay to Henry James's The Art of Fiction and started a lifelong friendship between the two authors. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde , published in January of 1886, sold 40,000 copies in six months in Britain. Stevenson said later that its plot was revealed to him in a dream. The mystery of Jekyll and Hyde is gradually revealed through the narratives of Mr Enfield, Mr Utterson, Dr Lanyon, and Jekyll's butler Poole. Utterson, Jekyll's lawyer, discovers that the nasty Mr. Edward Hyde is the heir of Dr. Jekyll's fortune. Hyde is suspected of a murder. Utterson and Poole break into Jekyll's laboratory and find the lifeless Hyde. Two documents explain the mystery: Jekyll's old friend, the late Dr. Lanyon, tells that Jekyll and Hyde are the same person. In his own account Jekyll tells that to separate the good and evil aspects of his nature, he invented a transforming drug. His evil self takes the form of the repulsive Mr Hyde. Jekyll's supplies of drugs run out and he finds himself slipping involuntarily into being Hyde. Jekyll kills himself, but the last words of the confession are written by his alter ego: "Here then, as I lay down the pen and proceed to seal up my confession, I bring the life of that unhappy Dr. Jekyll to an end." The story has been considered an criticism of Victorian double morality, but it can be read as a comment on Charles Darwin's book The Origin of Species - Dr. Jekyll turns in his experiment the evolution backwards and reveals the primitive background of a cultured human being. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde has become an icon of popular culture and adapted among others into screen over 20 times. On the death of his father in 1887, Stevenson felt free to follow the advice of his physician to try a complete change of climate. He started with his mother and family for Colorado; but after landing in New York they decided to spend the winter at Saranac Lake, in the Adirondacks. During the intensely cold winter Stevenson wrote a number of his best essays, including Pulvis et Umbra, he began The Master of Ballantrae, and lightheartedly planned, for the following summer, a cruise to the southern Pacific Ocean. In June 1888, Stevenson chartered the yacht “Casco” and set sail with his family from San Francisco. The salt sea air and thrill of adventure for a time restored his health; and for nearly three years he wandered the eastern and central Pacific, visiting important island groups, stopping for extended stays at the Hawaiian Islands where he became a good friend of King David Kalakaua with whom Stevenson spent much time. Stevenson also became best friends with the king's niece Princess Victoria Kaiulani, also of Scotitbussh heritage. They also spent time at the Gilbert Islands, Tahiti and the Samoan Islands. The Master of Ballantrae (1889), set in the same period as Kidnapped , showed a new sophistication in Stevenson's use of the elements of romance. Its basic theme involved complexities of character that his earlier romances had deliberately avoided. With his stepson Lloyd Osbourne he wrote The Wrong Box (1889) and other works. In 1890 he purchased four hundred acres (about 1.6 square kilometres) of land in Upolu, one of the Samoan Islands. He had nearly 20 servants and was known as 'Tusitala' or 'Teller of the Tales'. Here, after two aborted attempts to visit Scotland, he established himself, after much work, upon his estate, which he named Vailima ("Five Rivers"). In addition to building his house and clearing his land and helping the natives in many ways, he found time to work at his writing. In his enthusiasm, he felt that "there was never any man had so many irons in the fire." He wrote The Beach of Falesa, David Balfour, and The Ebb Tide (1894), which condemned the European colonial exploitation, as well as the Vailima Letters , during this period. For a time during 1894 Stevenson felt depressed; he wondered if he had exhausted his creative vein and completely worked himself out. He then suddenly had a return of his old energy and he began work on Weir of Hermiston. He felt that this was the best work he had done. Without knowing it, he was to have his wish fulfilled. During the morning of December 3, 1894, he had worked hard as usual on Weir of Hermiston. During the evening, while conversing with his wife and straining to open a bottle of wine, he suddenly fell to the ground, asking "What's the matter with me? What is this strangeness? Has my face changed?" He died within a few hours, probably of a cerebral hemorrhage, at the age of 44. The natives insisted on surrounding his body with a watch-guard during the night, and on bearing their Tusitala (Samoan language for "Teller of Tales") several miles upon their shoulders to the top of a cliff overlooking the sea, where he was buried. By the time of his death Stevenson had become a significant figure in island affairs. His observations on Samoan life were published in the collection In the South Seas (1896). His influence spread to the natives who consulted him for advice, and he soon became involved in local politics. He was convinced the European officials appointed to rule the natives were incompetent, and after many futile attempts to resolve the matter, he published A Footnote to History (1892). This was such a stinging protest against existing conditions that it resulted in the recall of two officials, and Stevenson feared for a time it would result in his own deportation. Of the stories written in these years, The Beach of Falesá in Island Nights' Entertainments (1893) remains particularly interesting as an exploration of the confrontation between European and native ways of life. Fanny Stevenson died in 1914 in California. Her ashes were taken to Samoa and buried alonside her husband, on the summit of Mount Vaea. Stevenson's last work, The Weir of Hermiston (1896), was left unfinished, but is considered his masterpiece. Stevenson's best-known work of horror, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde has since his death inspired several sequels by other hands, including Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Holmes by Loren D. Estelman (1979), Jekyll, Alias Hyde: A Variation by Donald Thomas (1988), The Jekyll Legacy by Robert Bloch and Andre Norton (1990) and Mary Reilly by Valrie Matin (1990). |
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