Robert Louis Stevenson

1850–1894

Robert Louis Stevenson was born in Edinburgh in 1850. He was ill for much of his life, yet he travelled widely, by canoe, by donkey and by sea.

Treasure Island began as a map he drew with his stepson on a rainy holiday in Scotland, and was published in 1883. Kidnapped and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde followed. He spent his last years on the island of Samoa in the South Pacific, where he died in 1894.

Robert Louis Stevenson on the site

Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr HydePublished in 1886 About 2 hours read The London lawyer Mr Utterson hears of a small, repulsive man named Edward Hyde who trampled a child in the street at night and paid her family with a cheque signed by Utterson's respected old friend, Dr Henry Jekyll. Worse, Jekyll's will leaves everything to Hyde. Utterson sets out to learn what hold the man has over the doctor. Robert Louis Stevenson's short 1886 novel is a mystery, and its answer is famous. Treasure IslandPublished in 1883 About 5 hours read An old sea captain with a sabre cut across his cheek takes a room at the Admiral Benbow inn, and young Jim Hawkins is told to keep a lookout for a seafaring man with one leg. When the captain dies, Jim finds a map of an island where the pirate Flint buried his treasure, and soon he is at sea with a ship's cook named Long John Silver. Robert Louis Stevenson's 1883 novel made the pirate story what it is.

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