Robert Louis Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, short story writer,
poet, essayist, dramatist, and prayer writer.

Robert Louis Stevenson was born to Thomas and Margaret Isabella Balfour Stevenson in Edinburgh on November 13, 1850. All through Stevenson's childhood he was plagued with respiratory illness that disrupted his learning, and eventually his work.

Going against his parent's wishes for their son to be an attorney, Stevenson studied literature while attending Edinburgh University. He focused himself in learning how to write, imitating the styles of William Hazlitt, Sir Thomas Browne, Charles Lamp, and Michel de Montaigne. 


Stevenson traveled all over the world where he wrote many of his stories. After a trip to France in 1876, he began a relationship with Mrs. Fanny Osbourne, an older American married woman. They married several years later.

Stevenson enjoyed great sucess with A Child's Garden of Verses, Dr. Jekyll, Treasure Island, and Kidnapped. It wasthese romances and understandings of youth that have made these stories classics. Stevenson died unexpedtedly from a cerebral hemorage after spending several years in the Samoan islands. (Quiller-Couch 385)