Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Stevenson

Stevenson’s Background

• Robert Louis Stevenson was born on 13 November 1850 at 8 Howard Place, Edinburgh.

• Within three years the respiratory problems which plagued him all his life began to appear.

• Confined to bed for long periods, he used his imagination to take him to faraway places.

Stevenson’s Background

• Much of Stevenson’s adult life was spent travelling in search of better health.

• He suffered from a chronic bronchial condition (possibly tuberculosis).

• In 1888 Stevenson set out with his family for the South Seas.

Stevenson’s Background

• Stevenson spent the remainder of his life in Samoa, where he was known affectionately as Tusitala – the storyteller.

• In 1894, he died suddenly from a brain haemorrhage, whilst working on his latest novel, Weir of Hermiston, which was set in Edinburgh and the Borders.

Stevenson in Samoa

Kidnapped

Many people know of Stevenson’s work through the numerous film adaptations of his most famous novels. Most recently, an adaptation of Kidnapped was shown on BBC 1 during March 2005.

Kidnapped

• Kidnapped is Stevenson’s first novel to be set in Scotland.

• The action is triggered by a stolen inheritance, that of young David Balfour, who subsequently becomes party to the daring escapades of the proud Highland outlaw Alan Breck.

• Stevenson uses the relationship between these two characters to reflect a divided Scotland.

Kidnapped

• Alan Breck represents the wild, romantic Highlands and the Jacobite cause, whereas David Balfour represents the respectable Lowland Scotland, loyal to the Hanoverian monarchy.

• This exploration of the differences within Scotland, combined with vivid descriptions of the Scottish landscape, make this novel much more than a simple adventure story.

Treasure Island

From Treasure Island

Chapter 4, The Sea Chest

Overcoming a strong repugnance, I tore open his shirt at the neck; and there, sure enough, hanging to a bit of tarry string, which I cut with his own gully, we found the key. At this triumph we were filled with hope, and hurried upstairs without delay to the little room where he had slept so long and where his box had stood since the day of his arrival.

It was like any other seaman’s chest on the outside, the initial B burned on the top of it with a hot iron and the corners somewhat smashed and broken as by long, rough usage.

‘Give me the key‘, said my mother; and though the lock was very stiff, she had turned it and thrown back the lid in a twinkling. A strong smell of tobacco and tar rose from the interior, but nothing was to be seen on the top except a suit of very good clothes, carefully brushed and folded. They had never been worn, my mother said.

From Treasure Island

Under that, the miscellany began – a quadrant, a tin cannikin, several sticks of tobacco, two brace of very handsome pistols, a piece of bar silver, an old Spanish watch and some other trinkets of little value and mostly of foreign make, a pair of compasses mounted with brass and five or six curious West Indian shells. I have often wondered since why he should have carried about these shells with him in his wandering, guilty and hunted life.

From Treasure Island

‘From a Railway Carriage’

Faster than fairies, faster than witches, Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;And charging along like troops in a battle, All through the meadows the horse and cattle:All of the sights of the hill and the plainFly as thick as driving rain;And ever again, in the wink of an eye,Painted stations whistle by.

‘From a Railway Carriage’

Here is a child who clambers and scrambles, All by himself and gathering brambles;Here is a tramp who stands and gazes;And there is the green for stringing the daisies!Here is a cart run away in the roadLumping along with man and load;And here is a mill and there is a river:Each a glimpse and gone for ever!

Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Stevenson dictating to Belle, his step daughter and secretary.

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

• Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is the tale of a doctor called Henry Jekyll, who concocts a potion that when drunk transforms him into Edward Hyde.

• The main idea of the book deals with an interesting theme: that within the same person there exists a divided self, and when one part is to the fore the other ceases to exist.

• Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is a thriller. The reader is kept guessing about the relationship between Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde right up to the end.

Stevenson Describing Edinburgh

‘She is liable to be beaten upon by all the winds that blow, to be drenched with rain, to be buried in the cold sea fogs out of the east, and powdered with the snow as it comes flinging southward from the Highland hills. The weather is raw and boisterous in winter, shifty and ungenial in summer, and a downright meteorological purgatory in the spring.

‘The delicate die early, and I, as a survivor, among bleak winds and plumping rain, have been sometimes tempted to envy them their fate. For all who love shelter and the blessings of the sun, who hate dark weather and perpetual tilting against the squalls, there could scarcely be found a more unhomely and harassing pace of residence.’

from Edinburgh: Picturesque Notes (1878)

Stevenson Describing Edinburgh