Robert Louis Stevenson - his life and struggles with illness

by Read Listen Learn


Robert Louis Stevenson’s works have never been out of print. In fact, he is the twenty-sixth most translated author in the history of world literature. His novels include: 'Treasure Island’, 'Kidnapped’ and 'The Master of Ballantrae’; and his short stories, 'The Body Snatcher’ and 'Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’. Although he is often considered a children’s writer, his prose is masterful and he had a great talent for choosing the exact word he needed to describe a situation. He could also conjure up suspense and describe local atmosphere, whether this was in Scotland, his native land, or on the Pacific islands he made his home in the last decade of his short life.

Robert Louis Stevenson was born in late 1850 in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. His grandfather was the most famous builder of lighthouses of his time and he was expected to join the family business as his uncles and father had done. The Stevenson family was a religious one and Robert’s nanny was even more so. But they were also a close family and nursed Robert well during his many childhood illnesses that could see him bed-ridden for whole winters. He did not make many friends at school but, perhaps, this was unsurprising as he was so often absent through sickness and could not join in sports.

He did, however, manage to get into the University of Edinburgh in 1867 to study engineering, although he had no interest in the subject. His long illnesses had given him the time to develop his talent as a writer, something that his father was very proud of – in fact, he paid to publish his son’s historical account of a 1666 Scottish rebellion when the lad was only sixteen. Perhaps, then, his family was not so shocked when Robert announced that he was going to be a writer and would not complete his degree in engineering. His father disappointedly agreed, although he said that Robert was to study law as well. This he did and passed his exams but never worked as a lawyer.

The young Stevenson’s decision not to become an engineer was not the only one that was going to disappoint his parents. He began to dress in unusual clothes, visited pubs and brothels and lost his faith in religion. His parents were heartbroken. He recorded their reactions in his diary with a great deal of feeling. Here are his father’s words when he learnt of Robert’s atheism:

"You have {made} my whole life a failure".

Ill health in late 1873 made Stevenson travel to the south of France to escape Scotland’s freezing cold and damp. He returned several times over the next couple of years and in 1875 met Fanny van de Grift Osborne, a married woman ten years older than him with three children. He returned to Britain but found that he could not stop thinking about her. Fanny had left her husband as he was always having affairs with other women. Stevenson spent a lot more time with her in 1877, but the following year she returned to the USA with her children to see if she could make up with her husband.

It only took a few months for Stevenson to follow her, although without telling his parents. To save money, he travelled second class across the Atlantic and then started the long journey from New York to San Francisco, where Fanny lived. Unfortunately, the journey was too much for a sick man and he had to rest for several weeks in a small community in California. Fanny, now divorced from her husband, joined him there.

They married in 1880 and never parted again. Stevenson said that he looked more like an advertisement for death on the happy day than someone at his own wedding. That same year, Stevenson, Fanny and her two children – the youngest had died – returned to Britain, where his new wife soon began to close the distance between Robert and his father.

Between 1880 and 1887, the Stevensons tried year after year to find somewhere in Britain where the weather was suitable for Robert’s health. Although he was often ill, it was during these years that Stevenson wrote some of his most famous work: 'Treasure Island’, 'Kidnapped’, 'Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’ and 'Black Arrow'.

His father lived long enough to see his extraordinary success but died in 1887, when the still very ill Stevenson was advised by his doctor to change climate to improve his health. He, therefore, went back to the US with all his family, including his mother and sister. The following year saw them on their way to the South Pacific on a yacht. Over the next three years until 1890, the family moved from one island to the next, staying three times in Hawaii and also on the Gilbert Islands (now Kiribati) and Samoa.

As well as continuing to write his short stories – some of which take place in the South Seas – and novels, Stevenson found time to make friends with the last King of Hawaii before it was annexed to the US, and also to watch the Samoan crisis between three American warships and the same number of German ones just off the coast of the island. All the ships were eventually sunk in a storm (although Samoa was soon divided anyway between the two industrialised nations).

In 1890 after three years of wandering, Stevenson finally bought a large area of land on Samoa and built himself and his family a house. He continued writing but was depressed by the results and wondered whether he would ever write anything decent again. He also became increasingly worried about his health and was determined not to become chronically ill again. He wrote this:

"I wish to die in my boots; ... To be drowned, to be shot, to be thrown from a horse — ay, to be hanged, rather than pass again through that slow dissolution."

As if by magic soon afterwards, he started feeling better again and began his last novel, one which he knew was the best he had ever written. It was 'Weir of Hermiston'. But the book remained unfinished as, one evening, he collapsed while opening a bottle of wine and died later that night of a cerebral haemorrhage.

Stevenson was much loved by his Samoan neighbours who had made friends with him and come to him for advice. He had even championed them against their western rulers. They took his body the next morning to the top of a hill and buried him overlooking the sea. On his grave there is the epitaph that he had wanted:

Under the wide and starry sky,

Dig the grave and let me lie.

Glad did I live and gladly die,

And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you gave for me:

Here he lies where he longed to be;

Home is the sailor, home from sea,

And the hunter home from the hill.