81-517: Brian Howell (born 1961) is a British author and teacher living and working near Tokyo, Japan. He has published three novels and one short story collection since 1990. His first novel, The Dance of Geometry , and his first collection, The Sound of White Ants , were both reviewed favourably by Toby Lichtig in The London Magazine . His novels focus on Dutch seventeenth-century painters with an interest in optical devices. His stories have elements of
162-427: A "red-hot socialist". But already by age 26 he was writing of looking back on this time "with something like regret. ... Now I know that in thus turning Conservative with years, I am going through the normal cycle of change and travelling in the common orbit of men's opinions." His cousin and biographer Sir Graham Balfour claimed that Stevenson "probably throughout life would, if compelled to vote, have always supported
243-828: A Proteus in Politics, a Chameleon in Literature, and a Butterfly in the World of Bon Ton , edited by Richard Fennell. The first item in the inaugural issue in February 1840 was "Behind the Scenes, with the Prologue to Our Little Drama", which begins: "[Manager Typo is discovered pacing up and down the stage ..." (image 10). The title was revived in November 1875 for a monthly edited by Will Williams. It has been described as "a society paper", and as "a journal of
324-579: A better thing to find than a five-pound note. He or she is a radiating focus of goodwill" and a practical demonstration of "the great Theorem of the Liveableness of Life". So that if they cannot be happy in the "handicap race for sixpenny pieces", let them take their own "by-road". In late 1873, when he was 23, Stevenson was visiting a cousin in England when he met two people who became very important to him: Fanny (Frances Jane) Sitwell and Sidney Colvin . Sitwell
405-469: A compilation by Gleeson White ). This period also saw the publication of Robert Louis Stevenson 's first fictional works, later collected in one volume as " The New Arabian Nights ". The London ceased publication with the issue dated 5 April 1879. In 1901 The Harmsworth Magazine was relaunched as The London Magazine by Cecil Harmsworth , proprietor of the Daily Mail at the time. The editor
486-402: A cruise to the southern Pacific Ocean for the following summer. Whenever I read a book or a passage that particularly pleased me, in which a thing was said or an effect rendered with propriety, in which there was either some conspicuous force or some happy distinction in the style, I must sit down at once and set myself to ape that quality. I was unsuccessful, and I knew it; and tried again, and
567-444: A darker realism. He died of a stroke in his island home in 1894 at age 44. A celebrity in his lifetime, Stevenson's critical reputation has fluctuated since his death, though today his works are held in general acclaim. In 2018, he was ranked just behind Charles Dickens as the 26th-most-translated author in the world. Stevenson was born at 8 Howard Place, Edinburgh , Scotland, on 13 November 1850 to Thomas Stevenson (1818–1887),
648-404: A detailed chronicle of the intersection of rivalries between the great powers and the first Samoan Civil War . As much as he said he disdained politics—"I used to think meanly of the plumber", he wrote to his friend Sidney Colvin, "but how he shines beside the politician!" —Stevenson felt himself obliged to take sides. He openly allied himself with chief Mataafa, whose rival Malietoa was backed by
729-500: A failure." His mother accounted the revelation "the heaviest affliction" to befall her. "O Lord, what a pleasant thing it is", Stevenson wrote to his friend Charles Baxter, "to have just damned the happiness of (probably) the only two people who care a damn about you in the world." Stevenson's rejection of the Presbyterian Church and Christian dogma, however, did not turn into lifelong atheism or agnosticism. On February 15, 1878,
810-476: A harmonious pattern of its own. Man's one method, whether he reasons or creates, is to half-shut his eyes against the dazzle and confusion of reality...Life is monstrous, infinite, illogical, abrupt and poignant; a work of art, in comparison, is neat, finite, self-contained, rational, flowing, and emasculate...The novel, which is a work of art, exists, not by its resemblances to life, which are forced and material ... but by its immeasurable difference from life, which
891-437: A leading lighthouse engineer, and his wife, Margaret Isabella (born Balfour, 1829–1897). He was christened Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson. At about age 18, he changed the spelling of "Lewis" to "Louis", and he dropped "Balfour" in 1873. Lighthouse design was the family's profession; Thomas's father (Robert's grandfather) was the civil engineer Robert Stevenson , and Thomas's brothers (Robert's uncles) Alan and David were in
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#1733115013877972-433: A literary row with writers for Blackwood's Magazine , in particular with John Gibson Lockhart , on various topics, including Blackwood 's virulent criticism of the "Cockney School", under which Leigh Hunt and John Keats were grouped. The quarrel ended in a fatal duel between Scott and Lockhart's close friend and colleague J.H. Christie. Scott lost the duel and his life in 1821. The London Magazine continued under
1053-675: A part of the family through her charm and wit. The Stevensons shuttled back and forth between Scotland and the Continent, finally settling in 1884 in the Westbourne district of the southern English seaside town of Bournemouth in Hampshire (now in Dorset ). Stevenson had moved there to benefit from its sea air. They lived in a house Stevenson named 'Skerryvore' after a Scottish lighthouse built by his uncle Alan. From April 1885, 34-year-old Stevenson had
1134-830: A patient at the Edinburgh Infirmary named William Ernest Henley , an energetic and talkative poet with a wooden leg. Henley became a close friend and occasional literary collaborator, until a quarrel broke up the friendship in 1888, and he is often considered to be the inspiration for Long John Silver in Treasure Island . Stevenson was sent to Menton on the French Riviera in November 1873 to recuperate after his health failed. He returned in better health in April 1874 and settled down to his studies, but he returned to France several times after that. He made long and frequent trips to
1215-419: A professor, Fleeming Jenkin , whose house staged amateur drama in which Stevenson took part, and whose biography he would later write. Perhaps most important at this point in his life was a cousin, Robert Alan Mowbray Stevenson (known as "Bob"), a lively and light-hearted young man who, instead of the family profession, had chosen to study art. In 1867, Stevenson's family took a lease on Swanston Cottage, in
1296-532: A spawn of inspectors, who now begin, note-book in hand, to darken the face of England". He is referring to the steady growth in social legislation in Britain since the first of the Conservative-sponsored Factory Acts (which, in 1833, established a professional Factory Inspectorate ). Stevenson cautioned that this "new waggon-load of laws" points to a future in which our grandchildren might "taste
1377-575: A stranger case still if Robert Louis Stevenson ever forgot Jules Simoneau. While in Monterey, he wrote an evocative article about "the Old Pacific Capital" of Monterey. By December 1879, aged 29, Stevenson had recovered his health enough to continue to San Francisco where he struggled "all alone on forty-five cents a day, and sometimes less, with quantities of hard work and many heavy thoughts," in an effort to support himself through his writing. But by
1458-612: A tale of European and American misconduct. His concern for the Polynesians is also found in the South Sea Letters , published in magazines in 1891 (and then in book form as In the South Seas in 1896). In an effort he feared might result in his own deportation, Stevenson helped secure the recall of two European officials. A Footnote to History: Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa (1892) was
1539-465: A tendency to coughs and fevers, exacerbated when the family moved to a damp, chilly house at 1 Inverleith Terrace in 1851. The family moved again to the sunnier 17 Heriot Row when Stevenson was six years old, but the tendency to extreme sickness in winter remained with him until he was 11. Illness was a recurrent feature of his adult life and left him extraordinarily thin. Contemporaneous views were that he had tuberculosis, but more recent views are that it
1620-519: A type more usual in Paris than London, written for the sake of its contributors rather than of the public". A significant development in this period was the arrival of William Ernest Henley , who accepted the post of editor, serving from 15 December 1877 for the closing two years (1877–1879). Henley anonymously contributed tens of his own poems to the magazine, "chiefly in old French forms," some of which have been termed "brilliant" (and were later published in
1701-594: A young man, he mixed in London literary circles, receiving encouragement from Sidney Colvin , Andrew Lang , Edmund Gosse , Leslie Stephen and W. E. Henley , the last of whom may have provided the model for Long John Silver in Treasure Island . In 1890, he settled in Samoa where, alarmed at increasing European and American influence in the South Sea islands , his writing turned from romance and adventure fiction toward
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#17331150138771782-508: Is designed and significant. It is not clear, however, that in this there was any real basis for disagreement with James. Stevenson had presented James with a copy of Kidnapped , but it was Treasure Island that James favoured. Written as a story for boys, Stevenson had thought it in "no need of psychology or fine writing", but its success is credited with liberating children's writing from the "chains of Victorian didacticism ". During his college years, Stevenson briefly identified himself as
1863-465: Is ever a "compromise") and to invite "anarchy": it is "the sentimentalist preparing the pathway for the brute". In June 1888, Stevenson chartered the yacht Casco from Samuel Merritt and set sail with his family from San Francisco. The vessel "plowed her path of snow across the empty deep, far from all track of commerce, far from any hand of help." The sea air and thrill of adventure for a time restored his health, and for nearly three years he wandered
1944-694: Is published six times a year. It publishes both emerging and established writers from around the world. Robert Louis Stevenson Robert Louis Stevenson (born Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson ; 13 November 1850 – 3 December 1894) was a Scottish novelist, essayist, poet and travel writer. He is best known for works such as Treasure Island , Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde , Kidnapped and A Child's Garden of Verses . Born and educated in Edinburgh, Stevenson suffered from serious bronchial trouble for much of his life but continued to write prolifically and travel widely in defiance of his poor health. As
2025-537: Is too late. It is to make roads, and gardens, and care for your trees, and sell their produce wisely, and, in one word, to occupy and use your country... if you do not occupy and use your country, others will. It will not continue to be yours or your children's, if you occupy it for nothing. You and your children will, in that case, be cast out into outer darkness". He had "seen these judgments of God", not only in Hawaii where abandoned native churches stood like tombstones "over
2106-548: The Overland Monthly and author of South Sea Idylls , who urged Stevenson to travel to the South Pacific, an idea which returned to him many years later. In August 1880, he sailed with Fanny and Lloyd from New York to Britain and found his parents and his friend Sidney Colvin on the wharf at Liverpool , happy to see him return home. Gradually, his wife was able to patch up differences between father and son and make herself
2187-551: The American Civil War . Their children were Isobel (or "Belle"), Lloyd and Hervey (who died in 1875). But anger over her husband's infidelities led to a number of separations. In 1875, she had taken her children to France where she and Isobel studied art. By the time Stevenson met her, Fanny was herself a magazine short-story writer of recognised ability. Stevenson returned to Britain shortly after this first meeting, but Fanny apparently remained in his thoughts, and he wrote
2268-653: The Covenanters . Stevenson recalled this time of sickness in "The Land of Counterpane" in A Child's Garden of Verses (1885), dedicating the book to his nurse. Stevenson was an only child, both strange-looking and eccentric, and he found it hard to fit in when he was sent to a nearby school at age 6, a problem repeated at age 11 when he went on to the Edinburgh Academy ; but he mixed well in lively games with his cousins in summer holidays at Colinton . His frequent illnesses often kept him away from his first school, so he
2349-462: The union with Britain (she had "majestically demonstrated her incapacity to rule Ireland") nor "landlordism" (scarcely more defensible in Ireland than, as he had witnessed it, in the goldfields of California). Rather he protests the readiness to pass "lightly" over crimes—"unmanly murders and the harshest extremes of boycotting "—where these are deemed "political". This he argues is to "defeat law" (which
2430-533: The 27-year-old wrote to his father and stated: Christianity is among other things, a very wise, noble and strange doctrine of life ... You see, I speak of it as a doctrine of life, and as a wisdom for this world ... I have a good heart, and believe in myself and my fellow-men and the God who made us all ... There is a fine text in the Bible, I don't know where, to the effect that all things work together for good for those who love
2511-1053: The Conservative candidate." In 1866, then 15-year-old Stevenson did vote for Benjamin Disraeli , the Tory democrat and future Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, for the Lord Rectorship of the University of Edinburgh . But this was against a markedly illiberal challenger, the historian Thomas Carlyle . Carlyle was notorious for his anti-democratic and pro-slavery views. In "The Day After Tomorrow", appearing in The Contemporary Review (April 1887), Stevenson suggested: "we are all becoming Socialists without knowing it". Legislation "grows authoritative, grows philanthropical, bristles with new duties and new penalties, and casts
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2592-538: The Germans whose firms were beginning to monopolise copra and cocoa bean processing. Stevenson was alarmed above all by what he perceived as the Samoans' economic innocence—their failure to secure their claim to proprietorship of the land (in a Lockean sense) through improving management and labour. In 1894 just months before his death, he addressed the island chiefs: There is but one way to defend Samoa. Hear it before it
2673-667: The Lord. Strange as it may seem to you, everything has been, in one way or the other, bringing me nearer to what I think you would like me to be. 'Tis a strange world, indeed, but there is a manifest God for those who care to look for him. Stevenson did not resume attending church in Scotland. However, he did teach Sunday School lessons in Samoa, and prayers he wrote in his final years were published posthumously. Justifying his rejection of an established profession, in 1877 Stevenson offered "An Apology for Idlers". "A happy man or woman", he reasoned, "is
2754-539: The South Seas . Stevenson left Sydney , Australia, on the Janet Nicoll in April 1890 for his third and final voyage among the South Seas islands. He intended to produce another book of travel writing to follow his earlier book In the South Seas , but it was his wife who eventually published her journal of their third voyage. (Fanny misnames the ship in her account The Cruise of the Janet Nichol .) A fellow passenger
2835-593: The Stevensons' dinner table. Largely bedridden, Stevenson described himself as living "like a weevil in a biscuit." Yet, despite ill health, during his three years in Westbourne, Stevenson wrote the bulk of his most popular work: Treasure Island , Kidnapped , Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (which established his wider reputation), A Child's Garden of Verses and Underwoods . Thomas Stevenson died in 1887 leaving his 36-year-old son feeling free to follow
2916-497: The advice of his friends and without notifying his parents. He took a second-class passage on the steamship Devonia , in part to save money but also to learn how others travelled and to increase the adventure of the journey. He then travelled overland by train from New York City to California. He later wrote about the experience in The Amateur Emigrant . It was a good experience for his writing, but it broke his health. He
2997-573: The advice of his physician to try a complete change of climate. Stevenson headed for Colorado with his widowed mother and family. But after landing in New York, they decided to spend the winter in the Adirondacks at a cure cottage now known as Stevenson Cottage at Saranac Lake, New York . During the intensely cold winter, Stevenson wrote some of his best essays, including Pulvis et Umbra . He also began The Master of Ballantrae and lightheartedly planned
3078-444: The benefits of freedom and common to all, were truly benefits of wealth, and took their value from our neighbour's poverty...Freedom to be desirable, involves kindness, wisdom, and all the virtues of the free; but the free man as we have seen him in action has been, as of yore, only the master of many helots; and the slaves are still ill-fed, ill-clad, ill-taught, ill-housed, insolently entreated, and driven to their mines and workshops by
3159-605: The capital, on which they built the islands' first two-storey house. Fanny's sister, Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez, wrote that "it was in Samoa that the word 'home' first began to have a real meaning for these gypsy wanderers". In May 1891, they were joined by Stevenson's mother, Margaret. While his wife set about managing and working the estate, 40-year-old Stevenson took the native name Tusitala (Samoan for "Teller of Tales"), and began collecting local stories. Often he would exchange these for his own tales. The first work of literature in Samoan
3240-414: The company of the novelist Henry James . They had met previously in London and had recently exchanged views in journal articles on the "art of fiction" and thereafter in a correspondence in which they expressed their admiration for each other's work. After James had moved to Bournemouth to help support his invalid sister, Alice , he took up the invitation to pay daily visits to Skerryvore for conversation at
3321-552: The dying sun, Smiled well content, and to this childish task Around the fire addressed its evening hours. In other respects too, Stevenson was moving away from his upbringing. His dress became more Bohemian ; he already wore his hair long, but he now took to wearing a velveteen jacket and rarely attended parties in conventional evening dress. Within the limits of a strict allowance, he visited cheap pubs and brothels. More significantly, he had come to reject Christianity and declared himself an atheist . In January 1873, when he
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3402-581: The eastern and central Pacific, stopping for extended stays at the Hawaiian Islands, where he became a good friend of King Kalākaua . He befriended the king's niece Princess Victoria Kaiulani , who also had Scottish heritage. He spent time at the Gilbert Islands , Tahiti , New Zealand and the Samoan Islands . During this period, he completed The Master of Ballantrae , composed two ballads based on
3483-483: The editorship of John Scott who formatted the magazine along the lines of the Edinburgh publication Blackwood's Magazine . It was during this time that the magazine published poems by William Wordsworth , Percy Bysshe Shelley , John Clare and John Keats . In September 1821 the first of two instalments of Thomas De Quincey 's Confessions of an English Opium-Eater appeared in the magazine. Scott quickly began
3564-467: The editorship of John Taylor . Its contributors included Thomas Hood , William Hazlitt and Charles Lamb . During this time Lamb published the first series of his Essays of Elia , beginning in 1820. Taylor's insistent tampering with contributors' poems led many of the staff, including Lamb and Hazlitt, to abandon the magazine, which ceased publication in 1829. Simpkin, Marshall and Co. published The London Magazine, Charivari, and Courrier des Dames;
3645-450: The elder Stevenson was naturally disappointed, the surprise cannot have been great, and Stevenson's mother reported that he was "wonderfully resigned" to his son's choice. To provide some security, it was agreed that Stevenson should read law (again at Edinburgh University) and be called to the Scottish bar . In his 1887 poetry collection Underwoods , Stevenson muses on his having turned from
3726-569: The end of the winter, his health was broken again and he found himself at death's door. Fanny was now divorced and recovered from her own illness, and she came to his bedside and nursed him to recovery. "After a while," he wrote, "my spirit got up again in a divine frenzy, and has since kicked and spurred my vile body forward with great emphasis and success." When his father heard of his 28-year-old son's condition, he cabled him money to help him through this period. Fanny and Robert were married in May 1880. She
3807-627: The essay "On falling in love" for The Cornhill Magazine . They met again early in 1877 and became lovers. Stevenson spent much of the following year with her and her children in France. In August 1878, she returned to San Francisco and Stevenson remained in Europe, making the walking trip that formed the basis for Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes (1879). But he set off to join her in August 1879, aged 28, against
3888-513: The exaggerated and romantic world that, as a child, he had entered as proud owner of Skelt's Juvenile Drama—a toy set of cardboard characters who were actors in melodramatic dramas. "A Gossip on Romance" (1882) and "A Gossip on a Novel of Dumas's" (1887) imply that it is better to entertain than to instruct. Stevenson very much saw himself in the mould of Sir Walter Scott, a storyteller with an ability to transport his readers away from themselves and their circumstances. He took issue with what he saw as
3969-443: The existence of a public interested in serious literature". Susan Sontag , Eugene Ionesco , Sylvia Plath , Gabriel García Márquez , Hilary Mantel and Annie Ernaux were among the iconic writers who contributed to the magazine during this period. In 1961 the magazine changed hands and came under the editorship of Lehmann's fellow poet and critic Alan Ross . Publication continued until Ross's death in 2001. Under both Lehmann and Ross
4050-399: The family profession: Say not of me that weakly I declined The labours of my sires, and fled the sea, The towers we founded and the lamps we lit, To play at home with paper like a child. But rather say: In the afternoon of time A strenuous family dusted from its hands The sand of granite, and beholding far Along the sounding coast its pyramids And tall memorials catch
4131-468: The family's engineering works. In 1868, this took him to Anstruther and for a stay of six weeks in Wick , where his family was building a sea wall and had previously built a lighthouse. He was to return to Wick several times over his lifetime and included it in his travel writings. He also accompanied his father on his official tour of Orkney and Shetland islands lighthouses in 1869 and spent three weeks on
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#17331150138774212-537: The first editor of his letters after his death. He placed Stevenson's first paid contribution in The Portfolio , an essay titled "Roads". Stevenson was soon active in London literary life, becoming acquainted with many of the writers of the time, including Andrew Lang , Edmund Gosse and Leslie Stephen , the editor of The Cornhill Magazine , who took an interest in Stevenson's work. Stephen took Stevenson to visit
4293-449: The greater part of his boyhood holidays in his maternal grandfather's house. "Now I often wonder what I inherited from this old minister," Stevenson wrote. "I must suppose, indeed, that he was fond of preaching sermons, and so am I, though I never heard it maintained that either of us loved to hear them." Lewis Balfour and his daughter both had weak chests, so they often needed to stay in warmer climates for their health. Stevenson inherited
4374-425: The household was not strict in its adherence to Calvinist principles. His nurse Alison Cunningham (known as Cummy) was more fervently religious. Her mix of Calvinism and folk beliefs were an early source of nightmares for the child, and he showed a precocious concern for religion. But she also cared for him tenderly in illness, reading to him from John Bunyan and the Bible as he lay sick in bed and telling tales of
4455-408: The island of Erraid in 1870. He enjoyed the travels more for the material they gave for his writing than for any engineering interest. The voyage with his father pleased him because a similar journey of Walter Scott with Robert Stevenson had provided the inspiration for Scott's 1822 novel The Pirate . In April 1871, Stevenson notified his father of his decision to pursue a life of letters. Though
4536-460: The lash of famine. In January 1888, aged 37, in response to American press coverage of the Land War in Ireland, Stevenson penned a political essay (rejected by Scribner's magazine and never published in his lifetime) that advanced a broadly conservative theme: the necessity of "staying internal violence by rigid law". Notwithstanding his title, "Confessions of a Unionist ", Stevenson defends neither
4617-491: The legends of the islanders, and wrote The Bottle Imp . He preserved the experience of these years in his various letters and in his In the South Seas (which was published posthumously). He made a voyage in 1889 with Lloyd on the trading schooner Equator , visiting Butaritari , Mariki, Apaiang and Abemama in the Gilbert Islands . They spent several months on Abemama with tyrant-chief Tem Binoka , whom Stevenson described in In
4698-484: The magazine in August of 1931, considered a classic of modern English literature. Despite the acclaim it enjoyed, the magazine closed in 1933. In 1954 a new periodical was given the title the London Magazine under the editorship of John Lehmann , who largely continued the tradition of his previous magazine New Writing . It was endorsed by T. S. Eliot as a non-university-based periodical that would "boldly assume
4779-402: The magazine was published by Chatto & Windus . In 2001 it was relaunched by Christopher Arkell, who appointed the poet and literary critic Sebastian Barker as editor. Barker retired in early 2008 and Sara-Mae Tuson took over. In July 2009 Arkell sold the magazine to Burhan Al-Chalabi , who is now the publisher. The London Magazine has been relaunched under the current editorship. It
4860-665: The neighbourhood of the Forest of Fontainebleau , staying at Barbizon , Grez-sur-Loing and Nemours and becoming a member of the artists' colonies there. He also travelled to Paris to visit galleries and the theatres. He qualified for the Scottish bar in July 1875, aged 24, and his father added a brass plate to the Heriot Row house reading "R.L. Stevenson, Advocate". His law studies did influence his books, but he never practised law; all his energies were spent in travel and writing. One of his journeys
4941-474: The pleasures of existence in something far liker an ant-heap that any previous human polity". Yet in reproducing the essay his latter-day libertarian admirers omit his express understanding for the abandonment of Whiggish , classical-liberal notions of laissez faire . "Liberty", Stevenson wrote, "has served us a long while" but like all other virtues "she has taken wages". [Liberty] has dutifully served Mammon; so that many things we were accustomed to admire as
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#17331150138775022-524: The printing of Robert's first publication at 16, entitled The Pentland Rising: A Page of History, 1666 . It was an account of the Covenanters' rebellion and was published in 1866, the 200th anniversary of the event. In September 1857, when he was six years old, Stevenson went to Mr Henderson's School in India Street, Edinburgh, but because of poor health stayed only a few weeks and did not return until October 1859, aged eight. During his many absences, he
5103-588: The same field. Thomas's maternal grandfather Thomas Smith had been in the same profession. However, Robert's mother's family were gentry , tracing their lineage back to Alexander Balfour, who had held the lands of Inchrye in Fife in the fifteenth century. His mother's father, Lewis Balfour (1777–1860), was a minister of the Church of Scotland at nearby Colinton , and her siblings included physician George William Balfour and marine engineer James Balfour . Stevenson spent
5184-495: The tendency in French realism to dwell on sordidness and ugliness. In "The Lantern-Bearer" (1888) he appears to take Emile Zola to task for failing to seek out nobility in his protagonists. In "A Humble Remonstrance", Stevenson answers Henry James 's claim in "The Art of Fiction" (1884) that the novel competes with life. Stevenson protests that no novel can ever hope to match life's complexity; it merely abstracts from life to produce
5265-666: The village of Swanston at the foot of the Pentland Hills , for use as a summer holiday home. They held the lease until 1880. During their tenancy, the young Robert Louis made frequent use of the cottage, being attracted by the quiet country life and the feeling of remoteness. It is likely that the time he spent there influenced his later writing as well as his wider outlook on life, particularly his love of nature and of wild places. The house and its romantic location are thought to have inspired several of his works. Each year during his university holidays, Stevenson also travelled to inspect
5346-492: The weird, fantasy, and magical realism. The London Magazine The London Magazine is the title of six different publications that have appeared in succession since 1732. All six have focused on the arts, literature and poetry. A number of Nobel Laureates, including Annie Ernaux , Albert Camus , Doris Lessing , and Nadine Gordimer have been published in its pages. It is England's oldest literary journal. The London Magazine, or, Gentleman's Monthly Intelligencer
5427-568: Was Henry Beckles Willson . Amalgamated Press continued publishing it until 1930, when it was retitled the New London Magazine . The Australian scholar Sue Thomas has referred to it as "an important informer ... of popular literary tastes in the late Victorian and Edwardian periods". Among Joseph Conrad 's contributions to The London Magazine was the serialization of his novel " Heart of Darkness " in three parts (from February to April 1899). George Orwell published his essay "A Hanging" in
5508-580: Was Jack Buckland , whose stories of life as an island trader became the inspiration for the character of Tommy Hadden in The Wrecker (1892), which Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne wrote together. Buckland visited the Stevensons at Vailima in 1894. In December 1889, 39-year-old Stevenson and his extended family arrived at the port of Apia in the Samoan islands and there he and Fanny decided to settle. In January 1890 they purchased 314 + 1 ⁄ 4 acres (127.2 ha) at Vailima, some miles inland from Apia
5589-570: Was bronchiectasis or sarcoidosis . The family also summered in the spa town of Bridge of Allan , in North Berwick , and in Peebles for the sake of Stevenson's and his mother's health; "Stevenson's cave" in Bridge of Allan was reportedly the inspiration for the character Ben Gunn 's cave dwelling in Stevenson's 1883 novel Treasure Island . Stevenson's parents were both devout Presbyterians , but
5670-586: Was 22, his father came across the constitution of the LJR (Liberty, Justice, Reverence) Club, of which Stevenson and his cousin Bob were members, which began: "Disregard everything our parents have taught us". Questioning his son about his beliefs, he discovered the truth. Stevenson no longer believed in God and had grown tired of pretending to be something he was not: "am I to live my whole life as one falsehood?" His father professed himself devastated: "You have rendered my whole life
5751-540: Was 40; he was 29. He said that he was "a mere complication of cough and bones, much fitter for an emblem of mortality than a bridegroom." He travelled with his new wife and her son Lloyd north of San Francisco to Napa Valley and spent a summer honeymoon at an abandoned mining camp on Mount Saint Helena (today designated Robert Louis Stevenson State Park ). He wrote about this experience in The Silverado Squatters . He met Charles Warren Stoddard , co-editor of
5832-399: Was a 34-year-old woman with a son, who was separated from her husband. She attracted the devotion of many who met her, including Colvin, who married her in 1901. Stevenson was also drawn to her, and they kept up a warm correspondence over several years in which he wavered between the role of a suitor and a son (he addressed her as " Madonna "). Colvin became Stevenson's literary adviser and was
5913-880: Was a canoe voyage in Belgium and France with Sir Walter Simpson, a friend from the Speculative Society, a frequent travel companion, and the author of The Art of Golf (1887). This trip was the basis of his first travel book An Inland Voyage (1878). Stevenson had a long correspondence with fellow Scot J.M. Barrie . He invited Barrie to visit him in Samoa , but the two never met. The canoe voyage with Simpson brought Stevenson to Grez-sur-Loing in September 1876, where he met Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne (1840–1914), born in Indianapolis . She had married at age 17 and moved to Nevada to rejoin husband Samuel after his participation in
5994-548: Was again unsuccessful and always unsuccessful; but at least in these vain bouts, I got some practice in rhythm, in harmony, in construction and the co-ordination of parts. I have thus played the sedulous ape to Hazlitt , to Lamb , to Wordsworth , to Sir Thomas Browne , to Defoe , to Hawthorne , to Montaigne , to Baudelaire and to Obermann . Stevenson's critical essays on literature contain "few sustained analyses of style or content". In "A Penny Plain and Two-pence Coloured" (1884) he suggests that his own approach owed much to
6075-482: Was founded in 1732 in political opposition and rivalry to the Tory-supporting Gentleman's Magazine and ran for 53 years until its closure in 1785. Edward Kimber became editor in 1755, succeeding his father Isaac Kimber . Henry Mayo was editor from 1775 to 1783. Publishers included Thomas Astley . In 1820 the London Magazine was resurrected by the publishers Baldwin, Craddock & Joy under
6156-609: Was his translation of The Bottle Imp (1891) , which presents a Pacific-wide community as the setting for a moral fable. Immersing himself in the islands' culture, occasioned a "political awakening": it placed Stevenson "at an angle" to the rival great powers , Britain, Germany and the United States whose warships were common sights in Samoan harbours. He understood that, as in the Scottish Highlands (comparisons with his homeland "came readily"), an indigenous clan society
6237-654: Was near death when he arrived in Monterey, California , where some local ranchers nursed him back to health. He stayed for a time at the French Hotel located at 530 Houston Street, now a museum dedicated to his memory called the " Stevenson House ". While there, he often dined "on the cuff," as he said, at a nearby restaurant run by Frenchman Jules Simoneau, which stood at what is now Simoneau Plaza; several years later, he sent Simoneau an inscribed copy of his novel Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), writing that it would be
6318-713: Was sent to Robert Thomson's private school in Frederick Street, Edinburgh, where he remained until he went to university. In November 1867, Stevenson entered the University of Edinburgh to study engineering. From the start he showed no enthusiasm for his studies and devoted much energy to avoiding lectures. This time was more important for the friendships he made with other students in The Speculative Society (an exclusive debating club), particularly with Charles Baxter, who would become Stevenson's financial agent, and with
6399-503: Was taught by private tutors. In October 1861, aged ten, he went to Edinburgh Academy , an independent school for boys, and stayed there sporadically for about fifteen months. In the autumn of 1863, he spent one term at an English boarding school at Spring Grove in Isleworth in Middlesex (now an urban area of West London). In October 1864, following an improvement to his health, the 13-year-old
6480-423: Was taught for long stretches by private tutors. He was a late reader, learning at age 7 or 8, but even before this he dictated stories to his mother and nurse, and he compulsively wrote stories throughout his childhood. His father was proud of this interest; he had also written stories in his spare time until his own father had found them and had told him to "give up such nonsense and mind your business." He paid for
6561-425: Was unprepared for the arrival of foreigners who played upon its existing rivalries and divisions. As the external pressures upon Samoan society grew, tensions soon descended into several inter-clan wars. No longer content to be a "romancer", Stevenson became a reporter and an agitator, firing off letters to The Times which "rehearsed with an ironic twist that surely owed something to his Edinburgh legal training",
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