From 1884 to 1887 the family lived in Bournemouth, a resort on England’s south coast.

After his father’s death in 1887, Stevenson and his mother, wife, and stepson moved to America. The author’s vagabond spirit and quest for better health led the family on a South Seas voyage that would prove to be his greatest adventure; in 1888 they visited the islands of the Marquesas, Tahiti, and Hawaii. During the journey Stevenson suffered a lung hemorrhage, and the family settled in Samoa to attend to his failing health. Stevenson’s works of the period, including In the South Seas (1890), which chronicle the clash between Eastern and Western cultures and champion the Samoan people, shocked his friends in Scotland, drew fire from local warring political factions, and nearly provoked his banishment from Samoa.

As Stevenson’s health seriously worsened he felt nostalgia for his native country, although he knew he would not survive a voyage home to Scotland. He collapsed of a brain hemorrhage while at work on his unfinished novel Weir of Hermiston and died on December 3, 1894, in Samoa.

The World of Robert Louis Stevenson and Treasure Island

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1850 Robert Louis Stevenson is born on November 13 in Edinburgh, the only child of Thomas and Margaret (née Balfour) Stevenson. As a child, he suffers from an illness, probably tuberculosis, which will plague him throughout his life.
1858 Poor health keeps Stevenson bedridden, and he attends school infrequently; tutors educate him at home.
1859 Darwin’s On the Origin of Species is published, as is Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities.
1865 Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is published.
1867 Thomas Stevenson enrolls his son in Edinburgh University with the hope that he will join the family engineering firm. The romantic, often sickly young man delights his professors but takes his formal studies lightly. Instead he fraternizes with the citizens of Edinburgh and spends time imitating the writing style of Michel de Montaigne, William Hazlitt, and Daniel Defoe.
1871 To his father’s dismay, Stevenson leaves his engineering studies to pursue a law degree. He continues to develop his true interest, writing. Royal Albert Hall opens in London.
1872 Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass and George Eliot’s Middlemarch are published.
1874 Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd appears.
1875 Stevenson passes the bar but decides not to practice law, choosing instead to write and to travel to Europe.
1876 A boat trip down the river Oise in France inspires

Stevenson to write the travel narrative An Inland Voyage. In France he meets Fanny Osbourne, a married American
1878 woman ten years his senior; the two fall in love. An Inland Voyage is published. Fanny returns to the United States, leaving Stevenson depressed and melancholy . He sets out on a journey through the mountains of France’s Massif Central and documents it in a narrative that becomes the book Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes, published the following year.
1879 In August Stevenson sets out for California to see Fanny. A severe chest infection leaves him on the verge of death.
1880 Having been granted a divorce, Fanny weds Stevenson and nurses him in northern California. The two then return to Edinburgh. During the next four years, between bouts of illness, the couple travels to southern France and Switzerland.
1881 Stevenson, inspired by a map he made with his stepson, Lloyd Osbourne, begins thinking about the plot for a story about a search for buried treasure.
1883 Treasure Island is published in book form and becomes a favorite among British readers.
1884 While traveling in southern France, Stevenson is struck by illness. He, Fanny, and Lloyd return to Britain and live from 1884 to 1887 in Bournemouth, a resort on the southern coast of England. Stevenson composes numerous works in the following two years. He also develops a friendship with Henry James.
1885 A Child’s Garden of Verses is published.
1886 The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Kidnapped are published.
1887 Stevenson’s father dies in May. The remaining family members-Stevenson’s mother, wife, and stepson—journey to America. Memories and Portraits is published.
1888 Stevenson, Fanny, her son, and Stevenson’s mother set sail for the South Seas on the Casco. The family visits many islands, including those of the Marquesas, Tahiti, and Hawaii.

1889 Stevenson visits a leper colony in Molokai to investigate —and exonerate—a missionary named Father Damien. The Master of Ballantrae is published.
1890 Stevenson sails throughout the Eastern Pacific until a lung hemorrhage leads him to settle in Samoa. In the South Seas and Father Damien are published.
1891 The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde, is published.
1892 Stevenson begins to campaign for Samoan rights against the encroaching Western powers; he publishes A Footnote to History: Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa.
1893 Stevenson is accused of sedition when he supports the position of a Samoan chief, nearly causing his banishment from Samoa. Knowing his health will not permit him to return to Scotland, Stevenson feels deep nostalgia for his native country.
1894 Samoa experiences peace, and Stevenson is hailed as a hero. While working on his novel Weir of Hermiston, Stevenson dies of a brain hemorrhage on December 3. He is buried atop Mount Vaea in Samoa.

Introduction

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Treasure Island is one of the great stories, and like most books of its kind it takes ideas and details from many other stories told before its time. Since the early 1880s, when it appeared in print, readers have asked how such enthralling narratives come into being. Where do they come from? What is their creative source? Is it the author’s schooling to become a writer, facts in history books, what we traditionally call creative genius, or all three? Only a few writers have been able to combine the excitement of daydreaming with a tough knowledge of actual life, and hence only a few have created classics of adventure, stories of the soul’s youthful dreams. Robert Louis Stevenson was one of those rare creators, a master storyteller.

Memorable storytelling is the voice of ancient beliefs and common tradition, their mythical voice.