Samuel Lloyd Osbourne (1868-1947), known as Lloyd, was RLSâs step-son. He was born in San Francisco to Samuel and Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne. Lloyd went with his mother and sister Belle to Europe when they were pursuing their art studies. In 1876 when they went to âŚ
Stevenson and his wife had wintered in the South of France and lived in England from 1880-1887, a period of time marked by Stevensonâs poor health and literary achievements. His first novel, Treasure Island, was published in 1883, followed by A Childâs Garden of Verses (1886), Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), and Kidnapped (1886).
In France in 1876 Stevenson met an American woman named Fanny Osbourne. Separated from her husband, she was eleven years older than Stevenson and had two children. Three years later Stevenson and Osbourne were married.
A Robert Louis Stevenson Timeline (Nov. 13th 1850 â Dec. 3rd 1894) ... Begins studying law at Edinburgh University. 1873. ... Will Lowe, and his French wife Berthe (who later translated Treasure Island into French in 1890) 28: Returns to New York. June. 2: Leaves for California, by train via Chicago and Salt Lake City ...
Stevenson wrote many of his most 'muscular' essays in Monterey while awaiting Fanny's decision. The lady ultimately chose Stevenson, divorced Osbourne, and in May 1880 she and Stevenson were married in San Francisco. A few days later, the couple left for a honeymoon in the Napa Valley, where Stevenson produced his work Silverado Squatters.
Robert (Bob) Alan Mowbray Stevenson (1847-1900) was Stevensonâs cousin and lifelong friend. He was born in Edinburgh to Alan Stevenson and Margaret Scott Jones. An aspiring artist, Bob studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Antwerp in 1873.
He is particularly significant because of his biography on RLS, The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson (1901) .
RLS wrote about his father in the essay âThomas Stevenson, Civil Engineerâ for The Contemporary Review in 1887. The essay was later included in Memories and Portaits (1887).
He dedicated A Childâs Garden of Verses (1885) to her to thank her for the nights she spent caring for him when he was ill as a child:
Cummyâs religious views had a strong influence on the young Stevenson: âif Louis spent, as he tells us, âa Covenanting childhoodâ, it was to Alison Cunningham that this was due.
Thomas Graham Balfour (1858-1929) was RLSâs cousin and biographer. He was also an educationist. Balfour was born to Thomas Graham Balfour (senior) and Georgina Prentice. Balfour married Rhoda Brooke in 1896 and the couple had two sons. Balfour lived in Vailima with the Stevenson family during the last two and a half years of RLSâs life.
Katharine Elizabeth Alan Stevenson de Mattos (1851-1939) was RLSâs cousin and Bob Stevensonâs sister. She was born to Alan Stevenson and Margaret Scott Jones. She married William Sydney de Mattos (b. 1851) and the couple had two surviving children. Katharine became an author, writing under the pseudonym of Theodor Hertz-Garten.
Reunited with Fanny after some time, Fanny received her divorce from her husband in December 1879 and in May 1880 the two were married in San Francisco. The following months were spent in Napa Valley where Louis would pen his next work The Silverado Squatters. In August 1880 the Stevensons returned to England.
Louis seemed in excellent spirits when he suddenly collapsed from a violent pain in his head and he lost consciousness. Stevenson, having suffered a brain hemorrhage and died soon afterwards. He was interred the following morning at the top of Mount Vaea.
As a result of his persistent poor health, Stevenson had a limited formal education. Instead he was typically educated by private tutors and nannies, none so beloved as Allison Cunningham, whom he nicknamed âCummy.â Cummy would regularly read to him from the Old Testament, Catechisms, and Bunyanâs Pilgrim Progress . This somewhat isolated childhood led to the development of a healthy imagination through which dreams of being a writer developed.
A year later word came from Fanny that inspired Stevenson to travel to America in pursuit of his love. A steamer from Glasgow brought him to New York. He then traveled by rail and carriage until arriving in California. His arduous journey west would later inspired his work, The Amateur Emigrant .
Throughout his childhood, Stevenson suffered chronic health issues which confined him to his bed. These illnesses, frequently described as a âweak chestâ, persisted throughout his life, taking the form of fevers, coughing, bronchial infections, and eventually the âBluidy Jackâ, a hemorrhaging of the lungs.
For more information see our recommended biographies . Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was born November 13, 1850 in Edinburgh, Scotland and was the only child of respectable middle-class parents. His father, Thomas, belonged to a family of engineers who had built most of the deep-sea lighthouses around ...
In August 1880 the Stevensons returned to England. Stevenson and his wife had wintered in the South of France and lived in England from 1880-1887, a period of time marked by Stevensonâs poor health and literary achievements.
Agreeing to study law as a compromise, in 1875 Stevenson was admitted to the Scottish bar, an organization for lawyers.
Sickly childhood. Robert Louis Stevenson was born on November 13, 1850, in Edinburgh, Scotland, the son of a noted lighthouse builder and harbor engineer. Though healthy at birth, Stevenson soon became a victim of constant breathing problems that later developed into tuberculosis, a sometimes fatal disease that attacks the lungs and bones.
Treasure Island (1881, 1883), first published as a series in a children's magazine, ranks as Stevenson's first popular book, and it established his fame. A perfect romance, according to Stevenson's formula, the novel tells the story of a boy's involvement with murderous pirates. Kidnapped (1886), set in Scotland during a time of great civil unrest, has the same charm. In its sequel, David Balfour (1893), Stevenson could not avoid psychological and moral problems without marked strain. In The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) he dealt directly with the nature of evil in man and the hideous effects that occur when man seeks to deny it. This work pointed the way toward Stevenson's more serious later novels. During this same period he published a very popular collection of poetry, A Child's Garden of Verses (1885).
28: â Thomas Stevenson takes RLS to the Burlington Lodge Academy, Spring Grove, Isleworth (for one term only)
13: Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson [from about 1868: Robert Louis Balfour; from about 1873: Robert Louis] born at 8 Howard Place, Edinburgh
July. RLS and parents visit Bad Homburg vor der HĂśhe (then Homburg), the capital of Hesse-Homburg, Germany. The family stayed in Homburg from 11 July â 8 August 1862 for a health cure for Mr Stevenson. From 1-11 July 1862, the family made their way to Homburg, traveling via Peterborough, London, Dover, Brussels, Koblenz, and Frankfurt to Homburg.
13: Receives a toy theatre as birthday present from his uncle and aunt, David and Jane Stevenson.
The lady ultimately chose Stevenson, divorced Osbourne, and in May 1880 she and Stevenson were married in San Francisco. A few days later, the couple left for a honeymoon in the Napa Valley, where Stevenson produced his work Silverado Squatters.
Early life. Fanny Vandegrift was born in Indianapolis, the daughter of builder Jacob Vandegrift, and his wife Esther Thomas Keen. She was something of a tomboy, and had dark curly hair. At the age of seventeen she married Samuel Osbourne, a lieutenant on the State Governor's staff. Their daughter Isobel (or 'Belle') was born the following year.
Hervey, sick with scrofulous tuberculosis, died on 5 April 1876, and was buried in a temporary grave at Père Lachaise Cemetery.
In August 1880, the family moved to Great Britain, where Fanny helped to patch things up between Robert and his father.
Stevenson was the only son of Thomas Stevenson, a prosperous civil engineer, and his wife, Margaret Isabella Balfour. His poor health made regular schooling difficult, but he attended Edinburgh Academy and other schools before, at age 17, entering Edinburgh University, where he was expected to prepare himself for the family profession of lighthouse engineering. But Stevenson had no desire to be an engineer, and he eventually agreed with his father, as a compromise, to prepare instead for the Scottish bar.
Robert Louis Stevenson was expected to join the family profession of lighthouse engineering but had no desire to be an engineer. He eventually agreed with his father, as a compromise, to prepare instead for the bar. In July 1875 he was called to the Scottish bar, but he never practiced; he became a writer instead.
Robert Louis Stevenson was a Scottish essayist, poet, and author of fiction and travel books, best known for his works Treasure Island and Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
One of the several names by which Stevenson addressed her in these letters was âClaire,â a fact that many years after his death was to give rise to the erroneous notion that Stevenson had had an affair with a humbly born Edinburgh girl of that name. Eventually the passion turned into a lasting friendship.
According to Lapierre, Stevenson's "constant reminders of her own limitations left her empty, and uncertain of her own identity," and her belief that she had failed as an artist "led her to sublimate her creative aspirations in this passionate love .".
Plausible as poetry or correspondence but ludicrous as conversation are such statements as Stevenson's compliment to his diminutive partner: "You smell like campfires and sage brush, like dreams of the Sierras, canyons and forests."
A turning point in Stevenson's personal life came during this period, when he met the woman who would become his wife, Fanny Osbourne, in September 1876. She was a 36-year-old American who was married (although separated) and had two children.
The two married in 1880, and remained together until Stevenson's death in 1894. After they were married, the Stevensons took a three-week honeymoon at an abandoned silver mine in Napa Valley, California, and it was from this trip that The Silverado Squatters (1883) emerged.
Publishing his first volume at the age of 28, Stevenson became a literary celebrity during his life when works such as Treasure Island, Kidnapped and Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde were released to eager audiences.
Robert Louis Stevenson was a 19th-century Scottish writer notable for such novels as 'Treasure Island,' 'Kidnapped' and 'Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.'
The idea for Treasure Island was ignited by a map that Stevenson had drawn for his 12-year-old stepson; Stevenson had conjured a pirate adventure story to accompany the drawing, and it was serialized in the boys' magazine Young Folks from October 1881 to January 1882.
Also appearing in the early 1880s were Stevenson's short stories "Thrawn Janet" (1881), "The Treasure of Franchard" (1883) and "Markheim" (1885), the latter two having certain affinities with Treasure Island and Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde (both of which would be published by 1886), respectively.
In 1878, Stevenson saw the publication of his first volume of work, An Inland Voyage; the book provides an account of his trip from Antwerp to northern France, which he made in a canoe via the river Oise. A companion work, Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes (1879), continues in the introspective vein of Inland Voyage and also focuses on the voice and character of the narrator, beyond simply telling a tale.
Yesterday, Liz Merry head of Phillips's book department, said the writer's wife apparently threw the manuscript on the fire because "she considered Dr Jekyll and the duality of man rather distasteful. "It's my belief that she thought Dr Jekyll, which was partly based on a dream, was not worthy of him. She was also uneasy because he was writing it ...
The admired sculptor was the mistress of Auguste Rodin for 15 years. Her feelings of injustice at his hands led her frequently to destroy all the work in her studio. Taken by force to an asylum in 1913, where she died
Sir Richard Burton (1821-1890) The Victorian explorer and Orientalist, was known as an expert on every scholarly subject "including pornography" - he translated the Kama Sutra and, from rare Arabic manuscripts, The Perfumed Garden. His more explicit writings were burned by his widow, Isobel, after his death.
Stevenson himself told a critic dourly: "The wheels of Byles the Butcher [a joking reference to his creditors, taken from George Eliot's novel Middlemarch] drive exceedingly swiftly."