Today in History
November 13, 1850
A Literary Treasure
Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson is born in Edinburgh, Scotland. He studies law, but never goes into practice, preferring to write and travel instead. While in France in his mid-twenties, he falls scandalously in love with an older, married American woman named Fanny Osbourne, who eventually divorces and marries Stevenson instead. She brings her young son, Lloyd, to live with them.
Inspired by a map of an imaginary island which he draws to entertain Lloyd, Stevenson writes an adventure story about pirates, buried treasure, and a young man named Jim Hawkins. The book, Treasure Island, published in book form in 1883, becomes a bestseller which remains in print 125 years later. Three years later, Stevenson publishes another highly popular short novel, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, about a physician with two opposing personalities. He writes several more books, essays and poems before dying of a stroke at age 44, leaving unfinished a promising novel-in-progress about life on the Samoan islands.
Inspired by a map of an imaginary island which he draws to entertain Lloyd, Stevenson writes an adventure story about pirates, buried treasure, and a young man named Jim Hawkins. The book, Treasure Island, published in book form in 1883, becomes a bestseller which remains in print 125 years later. Three years later, Stevenson publishes another highly popular short novel, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, about a physician with two opposing personalities. He writes several more books, essays and poems before dying of a stroke at age 44, leaving unfinished a promising novel-in-progress about life on the Samoan islands.
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