Robert Louis Stevenson

2 Pages 538 Words

Robert Louis Stevenson, the popular Scottish novelist, was born on November 13, 1850 in Howard place, Edinburgh. He was the son of a civil engineer, Thomas Stevenson and Margaret Isabel Balfour. Directly from his birth, he was set out to be an engineer, just like his father. From birth, the was taught by his nurse, Alison Cunningham. She had a strick view Calvinism and told relayed him her frequent stories of ghosts and fairies. He spent a large part of his childhood at his grandfather’s place at Colington or with his aunt, Jane Whyte Balfour. He had a happy childhood.
He was sent to school at Edinburgh academy and when he was 17 he became a student at the Edinburgh University. He did not have an interest in his studies and spent most of his time exploring the low life of the old town of Edinburgh. His father pressured him to become an engineer, so he took many engineering courses. At 21 he expressed his wish to become a writer. His father accepted Stevenson’s wish, as he was well aware of his son’s ill health. To secure his future, his father enrolled him in the university to study bar. He graduated in 1875 but never practiced.
He had started writing in his teens and he had several stories and poems already appearing in English magazines. In spite of his ill health, he traveled extensively. He frequently journaled his travels and later worte many of them into books. An Island Voyage and Travels With A Donkey, an account of his canoe tour of France and Belgium was published in 1878. In 1879, In the Cevennes was published. The same year he traveled to California. Here he married Ms. Fanny Osborne whom he had earlier met in France.
His most celebrated work, Treasure Island, was written for his stepson, Lloyd Osborne. Lloyed was ten years old at the time. Stevenson had created a treasure map for him. This map inspired Stevenson to write a pirate adventure story. After completion, Stevenson had a sudden spurt of writing. ...