Robert Louis Stevenson

Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) traveled early and often, leaving behind his family business and an education in engineering and law to pursue a life of adventure. His first books included An Inland Voyage, which containe tales of his travels—by canoe—from Antwerp to northern France.

Marriage took Stevenson even farther from home, as he and his wife Fanny settled in California, where he wrote short stories such as “The Treasure of Franchard” and “Markheim,” featuring themes that would appear in later novels.

Stevenson’s health declined in the 1880s, but his work flourished. He wrote Treasure Island while bedridden with a likely case of tuberculosis, and he followed up with The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Both were wildly popular when they were published in the 1880s, and they remain so today.