Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Stevenson
Portrait by Girolamo Nerli, 1892
Born	13 November 1850(1850-11-13) Edinburgh, Scotland
Died	3 December 1894 (aged 44) Vailima, Samoa
Occupation	Novelist, Poet, Travel writer
Influences Edgar Allan Poe
Influenced H. Rider Haggard, Jorge Luis Borges, Ernest Hemingway, Rudyard Kipling, Vladimir Nabokov, J. M. Barrie

Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson (13 November 1850–3 December 1894), was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer. He was the man who "seemed to pick the right word up on the point of his pen, like a man playing spillikins", as G. K. Chesterton put it.^[1] Stevenson was greatly admired by many authors, including Jorge Luis Borges, Ernest Hemingway, Rudyard Kipling, Vladimir Nabokov,^[2] and J. M. Barrie.^[3]

Life

Childhood

Stevenson was born Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson^[4] at 8 Howard Place, Edinburgh, Scotland, on 13 November 1850, to Thomas Stevenson (1818-1887), a leading lighthouse engineer, and his wife Margaret, born Margaret Isabella Balfour (1829-1897).^[5] Lighthouse design was the family profession: Thomas's own father was the famous Robert Stevenson, and his maternal grandfather, Thomas Smith, and brothers Alan and David were also among those in the business.^[6] On Margaret's side, the family were gentry, tracing their name back to an Alexander Balfour, who held the lands of Inchrye in Fife in the fifteenth century. Her father, Lewis Balfour (1777-1860), was a minister of the Church of Scotland at nearby Colinton,^[7] and Stevenson spent the greater part of his boyhood holidays in his house. "Now I often wonder", says Stevenson, "what I inherited from this old minister. I must suppose, indeed, that he was fond of preaching sermons, and so am I, though I never heard it maintained that either of us loved to hear them."^[8]

Both Balfour and his daughter had a "weak chest" and often needed to stay in warmer climates for their health. Stevenson inherited a tendency to coughs and fevers, exacerbated when the family moved to a damp and chilly house at 1 Inverleith Terrace in 1853. The family moved again to the sunnier 17 Heriot Row when Stevenson was six, but the tendency to extreme sickness in winter remained with him until he was eleven. Illness would be a recurrent feature of his adult life, and left him extraordinarily thin.^[9] Contemporary views were that he had tuberculosis, but more recent views are that it was bronchiectasis^[10] or even sarcoidosis.^[11]

Stevenson's parents were both devout and serious Presbyterians, but the household was not unusually strict. His nurse, Alison Cunningham (known as Cummy), was more fervently religious. Her Calvinism and folk beliefs were an early source of nightmares for the child; and he showed a precocious concern for religion.^[12] But she also cared for him tenderly in illness, reading to him as he lay sick in bed from Bunyan and the Bible, and telling tales of the Covenanters. Stevenson recalled this time of sickness in the poem "The Land of Counterpane" in A Child's Garden of Verses (1885)^[13] and dedicated the book to his nurse.^[14]

An only child, strange-looking and eccentric, Stevenson found it hard to fit in when he was sent to a nearby school at six, a pattern repeated at eleven, when he went on to the Edinburgh Academy; but he mixed well in lively games with his cousins in summer holidays at the Colinton manse.^[15] In any case, his frequent illnesses often kept him away from his first school, and he was taught for long stretches by private tutors.^[16] He was a late reader, first learning at seven or eight; but even before this he dictated stories to his mother and nurse.^[17] Throughout his childhood he was compulsively writing stories. His father was proud of this interest: he had himself written stories in his spare time until his own father found them and told him to "give up such nonsense and mind your business".^[18] He paid for the printing of Robert's first publication at sixteen, an account of the covenanters' rebellion, published on its two hundredth anniversary, The Pentland Rising: a Page of History, 1666 (1866).^[19]

University

It was expected that Stevenson's writing would remain a sideline; and in November 1867 he entered the University of Edinburgh to study engineering. He showed from the start no enthusiasm for his studies and devoted much energy to avoiding lectures. His time was more important for the friendships he made: with other students in the Speculative Society (an exclusive debating club), particularly with Charles Baxter, who would become Stevenson's financial agent; and with one professor, Fleeming Jenkin, whose house staged amateur drama in which Stevenson took part, and whose biography he would later write.^[20] Perhaps most important at this point in his life was a cousin, Robert Alan Mowbray Stevenson (known as "Bob"), a lively and light-hearted young man, who instead of the family profession had chosen to study art.^[21] Each year during vacations, Stevenson travelled to inspect the family's engineering works – to Anstruther and Wick in 1868, with his father on his official tour of Orkney and Shetland islands lighthouses in 1869, for three weeks to the island of Earraid in 1870. He enjoyed the travels, but more for the material they gave for his writing than for any engineering interest: the voyage with his father pleased him because a similar journey of Walter Scott with Robert Stevenson had provided the inspiration for The Pirate.^[22] In April 1871, he announced to his father his decision to pursue a life of letters. Though the elder Stevenson was naturally disappointed, the surprise cannot have been great, and Stevenson's mother reported that he was "wonderfully resigned" to his son's choice. To provide some security, it was agreed that Stevenson should read Law (again at Edinburgh University) and be called to the Scottish bar.^[23] Years later, in his poetry collection Underwoods (1887), he looked back on how he turned away from the family profession:^[24]

Say not of me that weakly I declined
The labours of my sires, and fled the sea,
The towers we founded and the lamps we lit,
But rather say: In the afternoon of time
A strenuous family dusted from its hands
The sand of granite, and beholding far
Along the sounding coast its pyramids
And tall memorials catch the dying sun,
Smiled well content, and to this childish task
Around the fire addressed its evening hours.

In other respects too, Stevenson was moving away from his upbringing. His dress became more Bohemian: he already wore his hair long, but he now took to wearing a velveteen jacket and rarely attended parties in conventional evening dress.^[25] Within the limits of a strict allowance, he visited cheap pubs and brothels.^[26] More importantly, he had come to reject Christianity. In January 1873, his father came across the constitution of the LJR (Liberty, Justice, Reverence) club of which Stevenson with his cousin Bob was a member, which began "Disregard everything our parents have taught us". Questioning his son about his beliefs, he discovered the truth, leading to a long period of dissension with both parents:^[27]

What a damned curse I am to my parents! as my father said "You have rendered my whole life a failure". As my mother said "This is the heaviest affliction that has ever befallen me". O Lord, what a pleasant thing it is to have damned the happiness of (probably) the only two people who care a damn about you in the world.

Marriage and travels

The next four years were spent mostly in travel and in search of a climate that would be more beneficial for his health. He made long and frequent trips to Fontainebleau, Barbizon, Grez, and Nemours, becoming a member of the artists' colonies there, as well as to Paris to visit galleries and the theatres. It was during this period he made most of his lasting friendships and met his future wife, Fanny Vandegrift Osbourne, an American who was 10 years his senior and married at the time. Among his friends were Sidney Colvin, his biographer and literary agent; William Ernest Henley, a collaborator in dramatic composition; Mrs. Sitwell, who helped him through a religious crisis; and Andrew Lang, Edmund Gosse, and Leslie Stephen, all writers and critics. He also made the journeys described in An Inland Voyage and Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes. In addition, he wrote 20 or more articles and essays for various magazines. Although it seemed to his parents that he was wasting his time and being idle, in reality he was constantly studying to perfect his style of writing and broaden his knowledge of life, emerging as a man of letters.

Stevenson paces in his dining room in an 1885 portrait by John Singer Sargent. His wife Fanny, seated in an Indian dress, is visible in the lower right corner.

Stevenson and Fanny Vandegrift Osbourne met at Grez in September, 1876. Although Stevenson shortly afterwards returned to Britain, Fanny apparently remained in his thoughts, and he wrote an essay "On falling in love" for the Cornhill Magazine.^[28] They met again early in 1877 and became lovers. Stevenson spent much of the following years with her and her children in France.^[29] Then, in August 1878, Fanny returned to her home in San Francisco, California. Stevenson at first remained in Europe, making the walking trip that would form the basis for Travels with a Donkey; but in August 1879, he set off to join her, against the advice of his friends and without notifying his parents. He took second class passage on the Devonian, in part to save money, but also to learn how others travelled and to increase the adventure of the journey.^[30] From New York City he travelled overland by train to California. He later wrote about the experience in The Amateur Emigrant. Although it was good experience for his literature, it broke his health, and he was near death when he arrived in Monterey. He was nursed back to health by some ranchers there.

By December of 1879 he had recovered his health enough to continue to San Francisco, where for several months he struggled "all alone on forty-five cents a day, and sometimes less, with quantities of hard work and many heavy thoughts,"^[31] in an effort to support himself through his writing, but by the end of the winter his health was broken again, and he found himself at death's door. Vandegrift — now divorced and recovered from her own illness — came to Stevenson's bedside and nursed him to recovery. "After a while," he wrote, "my spirit got up again in a divine frenzy, and has since kicked and spurred my vile body forward with great emphasis and success."^[32] When his father heard of his condition he cabled him money to help him through this period.

In May, 1880, Stevenson married Fanny although, as he said, he was "a mere complication of cough and bones, much fitter for an emblem of mortality than a bridegroom."^[33] With his new wife and her son, Lloyd, he travelled north of San Francisco to Napa Valley, and spent a summer honeymoon at an abandoned mining camp on Mount Saint Helena. He wrote about this experience in The Silverado Squatters. He met Charles Warren Stoddard, co-editor of the Overland Monthly and author of South Sea Idylls, who urged Stevenson to travel to the south Pacific, an idea which would return to him many years later. In August 1880 he sailed with his family from New York back to Britain, and found his parents and his friend Sidney Colvin on the wharf at Liverpool, happy to see him return home. Gradually his new wife was able to patch up differences between father and son and make herself a part of the new family through her charm and wit.

Attempted settlement in Europe

Portrait by John Singer Sargent, 1887.

For the next seven years between 1880 and 1887 Stevenson searched in vain for a place of residence suitable to his state of health. He spent his summers at various places in Scotland and England, including Westbourne, Dorset, a residential area in Bournemouth. There he lived in a dwelling he renamed Skerryvore after a lighthouse, the tallest in Scotland, built by his uncle Alan Stevenson many years earlier. For his winters, he escaped to sunny France, and lived at Davos-Platz and the Chalet de Solitude at Hyeres, where, for a time, he enjoyed almost complete happiness. "I have so many things to make life sweet for me," he wrote, "it seems a pity I cannot have that other one thing — health. But though you will be angry to hear it, I believe, for myself at least, what is is best. I believed it all through my worst days, and I am not ashamed to profess it now."^[34] In spite of his ill health he produced the bulk of his best known work: Treasure Island, his first widely popular book; Kidnapped; The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the story which established his wider reputation; and two volumes of verse, A Child's Garden of Verses and Underwoods. At Skerryvore he gave a copy of Kidnapped to his dear friend and frequent visitor, Henry James.^[35]

Stevenson's "Cure Cottage" in Saranac Lake.

Journey to the Pacific

On the death of his father in 1887, Stevenson felt free to follow the advice of his physician to try a complete change of climate. He started with his mother and family for Colorado; but after landing in New York they decided to spend the winter at Saranac Lake, in the Adirondacks. During the intensely cold winter Stevenson wrote a number of his best essays, including Pulvis et Umbra, he began The Master of Ballantrae, and lightheartedly planned, for the following summer, a cruise to the southern Pacific Ocean. "The proudest moments of my life," he wrote, "have been passed in the stern-sheets of a boat with that romantic garment over my shoulders."^[36]

In June 1888, Stevenson chartered the yacht Casco and set sail with his family from San Francisco. The vessel "plowed her path of snow across the empty deep, far from all track of commerce, far from any hand of help."^[37] The salt sea air and thrill of adventure for a time restored his health; and for nearly three years he wandered the eastern and central Pacific, visiting important island groups, stopping for extended stays at the Hawaiian Islands where he became a good friend of King David Kalakaua, with whom Stevenson spent much time. Furthermore, Stevenson befriended the king's niece Princess Victoria Kaiulani, who was of Scottish heritage. He also spent time at the Gilbert Islands, Tahiti and the Samoan Islands. During this period he completed The Master of Ballantrae, composed two ballads based on the legends of the islanders, and wrote The Bottle Imp. The experience of these years is preserved in his various letters and in The South Seas. A second voyage on the Equator followed in 1889 with Lloyd Osbourne accompanying them.

It was also from this period that one particular open letter stands as testimony to his activism and indignation at the pettiness of such 'powers that be' as a Presbyterian minister in Honolulu named Rev. Dr. Hyde. During his time in the Hawaiian Islands, Stevenson had visited Molokai and the leper colony there, shortly after the demise of Father Damien. When Dr. Hyde wrote a letter to a fellow clergyman speaking ill of Father Damien, Stevenson wrote a scathing open letter of rebuke to Dr. Hyde. Soon afterwards in April 1890 Stevenson left Sydney on the Janet Nicoll and went on his third and final voyage among the South Seas islands.^[38]

Last years

In 1890 he purchased four hundred acres (about 1.6 square kilometres) of land in Upolu, one of the Samoan islands. Here, after two aborted attempts to visit Scotland, he established himself, after much work, upon his estate, which he named Vailima ("Five Rivers"). Stevenson himself adopted the native name Tusitala (Samoan for "Story Writer"). His influence spread to the natives who consulted him for advice, and he soon became involved in local politics. He was convinced the European officials appointed to rule the natives were incompetent, and after many futile attempts to resolve the matter, he published A Footnote to History. This was such a stinging protest against existing conditions that it resulted in the recall of two officials, and Stevenson feared for a time it would result in his own deportation. When things had finally blown over he wrote a friend, "I used to think meanly of the plumber; but how he shines beside the politician!"^[39]

In addition to building his house and clearing his land and helping the natives in many ways, he found time to work at his writing. In his enthusiasm, he felt that "there was never any man had so many irons in the fire."^[40] He wrote The Beach of Falesa, Catriona (titled David Balfour in the USA),^[41] The Ebb-Tide, and the Vailima Letters, during this period.

For a time during 1894 Stevenson felt depressed; he wondered if he had exhausted his creative vein and completely worked himself out. He wrote that he had "overworked bitterly".^[42] He felt more clearly that, with each fresh attempt, the best he could write was "ditch-water".^[43] He even feared that he might again become a helpless invalid. He rebelled against this idea: "I wish to die in my boots; no more Land of Counterpane for me. To be drowned, to be shot, to be thrown from a horse — ay, to be hanged, rather than pass again through that slow dissolution."^[44] He then suddenly had a return of his old energy and he began work on Weir of Hermiston. "It's so good that it frightens me," he is reported to have exclaimed. He felt that this was the best work he had done. He was convinced, "sick and well, I have had splendid life of it, grudge nothing, regret very little ... take it all over, damnation and all, would hardly change with any man of my time."^[45]

Stevenson's tomb on Mt. Vaea

Without knowing it, he was to have his wish fulfilled. During the morning of 3 December 1894, he had worked hard as usual on Weir of Hermiston. During the evening, while conversing with his wife and straining to open a bottle of wine, he suddenly exclaimed, "What's that!" He then asked his wife, "Does my face look strange?" and collapsed beside her.^[46] He died within a few hours, probably of a cerebral haemorrhage, at the age of 44. The natives insisted on surrounding his body with a watch-guard during the night, and on bearing their Tusitala upon their shoulders to nearby Mount Vaea and buried him on a spot overlooking the sea.^[47] A tablet was placed there, which bore the inscription of his 'Requiem', the piece he always had intended as his epitaph:

Monuments and commemoration

A bronze relief memorial to Stevenson, designed by American sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens in 1904, is mounted in the Moray Aisle of St Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh.^[48] Another memorial in Edinburgh stands in West Princes Street Gardens below Edinburgh Castle; it is a simple upright stone inscribed with "RLS - A Man of Letters 1850 -1894" by sculptor Iain Hamilton Finlay in 1987.^[49]

In 1994, to mark the 100th Anniversary of Stevenson's death, the Royal Bank of Scotland issued a series of commemorative £1 notes which featured a quill pen and Stevenson's signature on the obverse, and Stevenson's face on the reverse side. Alongside Stevenson's portrait are scenes from some of his books and his house in Western Samoa where he died in 1894.^[50]Two million notes were issued, each with a serial number beginning "RLS". The first note to be printed was sent to Samoa in time for their centenary celebrations on 3 December 1994.^[51]

Modern reception

Stevenson was a celebrity in his own time, but with the rise of modern literature after World War I, he was seen for much of the 20th century as a writer of the second class, relegated to children's literature and horror genres.^[52] Condemned by authors such as Virginia and Leonard Woolf, he was gradually excluded from the canon of literature taught in schools.^[52] His exclusion reached a height when in the 1973 2,000-page Oxford Anthology of English Literature Stevenson was entirely unmentioned; and the Norton Anthology of English Literature excluded him from 1968 to 2000 (1st–7th editions), including him only in the 8th edition (2006).^[52] The late 20th century saw the start of a re-evaluation of Stevenson as an artist of great range and insight, a literary theorist, an essayist and social critic, a witness to the colonial history of the Pacific Islands, and a humanist.^[52] Even as early as 1965 the pendulum had begun to swing: he was praised by Roger Lancelyn Green, one of the Oxford Inklings, as a writer of a consistently high level of "literary skill or sheer imaginative power" and a co-originator with H. Rider Haggard of the Age of the Story Tellers.^[53] He is now being re-evaluated as a peer of authors such as Joseph Conrad (whom Stevenson influenced with his South Seas fiction) and Henry James, with new scholarly studies and organizations devoted to Stevenson.^[52] No matter what the scholarly reception, Stevenson remains very popular around the world. According to the Index Translationum, Stevenson is ranked the 25th most translated author in the world, ahead of fellow nineteenth-century writers Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde and Edgar Allan Poe.^[54]

Bibliography

For a detailed list see bibliography.

Novels

• Treasure Island (1883) His first major success, a tale of piracy, buried treasure, and adventure, has been filmed frequently. He originally entitled it The Sea Cook but an editor changed it.
• The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses (1883) An historical adventure novel and romance set during the Wars of the Roses.
• Prince Otto (1885) Stevenson’s third full-length narrative, an action romance set in the imaginary Germanic state of Grünewald.
• Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), a novella about a dual personality much depicted in plays and films, also influential in the growth of understanding of the subconscious mind through its treatment of a kind and intelligent physician who turns into a psychopathic monster after imbibing a drug intended to separate good from evil in a personality.
• Kidnapped (1886) is a historical novel that tells of the boy David Balfour's pursuit of his inheritance and his alliance with Alan Breck in the intrigues of Jacobite troubles in Scotland.
• The Master of Ballantrae (1889), a masterful tale of revenge, set in Scotland, America, and India.
• The Wrong Box (1889); co-written with Lloyd Osbourne. A comic novel of a tontine, also filmed (1966). A tontine is a group life-insurance policy in which all the benefits go to the last survivor. Both in the novel and in real life, it is an incentive to murder, and no longer legal in most countries.
• The Wrecker (1892); co-written with Lloyd Osbourne.
• Catriona (1893), also known as David Balfour, is a sequel to Kidnapped, telling of Balfour's further adventures.
• The Ebb-Tide (1894); co-written with Lloyd Osbourne.
• Weir of Hermiston (1896). Unfinished at the time of Stevenson's death, considered to have promised great artistic growth.
• St. Ives: being the Adventures of a French Prisoner in England (1897). Unfinished at the time of Stevenson's death, the novel was completed by Arthur Quiller-Couch.

Short story collections

• New Arabian Nights (1882)
• More New Arabian Nights:The Dynamiter (1885); co-written with Fanny Van De Grift Stevenson
• The Merry Men and Other Tales and Fables (1887)
• Island Nights' Entertainments (also known as South Sea Tales) (1893)

Short stories

List of short stories sorted chronologically. Note: does not include collaborations with Fanny found in More New Arabian Nights:The Dynamiter.

Other works

• "Béranger, Pierre Jean de", article for the ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1875–89)
• Virginibus Puerisque, and Other Papers (1881)
• Familiar Studies of Men and Books (1882)
• Memories and Portraits (1887), a collection of essays.
• Father Damien: an Open Letter to the Rev. Dr. Hyde of Honolulu (1890)
• Vailima Letters (1895)
• The New Lighthouse on the Dhu Heartach Rock, Argyllshire (1995). Based on an 1872 manuscript edited by R. G. Swearingen. California. Silverado Museum.
• Sophia Scarlet (2008). Based on 1892 manuscript edited by Robert Hoskins. AUT Media (AUT University).
• Aes Triplex (1887)

Poetry

• A Child's Garden of Verses (1885), written for children but also popular with their parents. Includes such favourites as "My Shadow" and "The Lamplighter". Often thought to represent a positive reflection of the author's sickly childhood.
• Underwoods (1887), a collection of poetry written in both English and Scots.
• Songs of Travel and Other Verses (1896)
• Ballads (1891)

Travel writing

• An Inland Voyage (1878), travels with a friend in a "Rob Roy" canoe from Antwerp (Belgium) to Pontoise, just north of Paris.
• Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes (1879), two weeks' solo ramble (with Modestine as his beast of burden) in the mountains of Cévennes (south-central France), one of the first books to present hiking and camping as recreational activities. It tells of commissioning one of the first sleeping bags.
• The Silverado Squatters (1883). An unconventional honeymoon trip to an abandoned mining camp in Napa Valley with his new wife Fanny and her son Lloyd. He presciently identifies the California wine industry as one to be reckoned with.
• Across the Plains (written in 1879–80, published in 1892). Second leg of his journey, by train from New York to California (then picks up with The Silverado Squatters). Also includes other travel essays.
• The Amateur Emigrant (written 1879–80, published 1895). An account of the first leg of his journey to California, by ship from Europe to New York. Andrew Noble (From the Clyde to California: Robert Louis Stevenson’s Emigrant Journey, 1985) considers it to be his finest work.
• The Old and New Pacific Capitals (1882). An account of his stay in Monterey, California in August to December 1879. Never published separately. See, for example, James D. Hart, ed., From Scotland to Silverado, 1966.

Island literature

Although not well known, his island fiction and non-fiction is among the most valuable and collected of the 19th century body of work that addresses the Pacific area.

Non-fiction works on the Pacific

• In the South Seas. A collection of Stevenson's articles and essays on his travels in the Pacific.
• A Footnote to History, Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa (1892)^[55].

Musical compositions

Stevenson was an amateur composer who wrote songs typical of California in the 1880s, salon-type music, entertaining rather than serious. A flageolet player, Stevenson had studied harmony and simple counterpoint and knew such basic instrumental techniques as transposition. Some song titles include "Fanfare", "Tune for Flageolet", "Habanera", and "Quadrille". Robert Hughes in 1968 arranged a number of Stevenson's songs for chamber orchestra, which went on a tour of the Pacific Northwest in that year.

See also

• Robert Louis Stevenson State Park

References

Secondary literature

• Graham Balfour, The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson, London: Methuen, 1901.
• John Jay Chapman "Robert Louis Stevenson", Emerson, and Other Essays. New York: AMS Press, 1969, ISBN 0404006191 (reprinted from the edition of 1899)
• David Daiches, "Robert Louis Stevenson and his World", London: Thames and Hudson, 1973, ISBN 0500130450
• J. C. Furnas, Voyage to Windward: The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson, London: Faber and Faber, 1952
• Claire Harman, Robert Louis Stevenson: A Biography, HarperCollins, ISBN 0-00-711321-8 [reviewed by Matthew Sturgis in the Times Literary Supplement, 11 March 2005, page 8]
• James Pope-Hennessy, Robert Louis Stevenson - A Biography, London: Cape, 1974, ISBN 0224010077
• Ernest Mehew, "Robert Louis Stevenson", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford: OUP, 2004. Retrieved on 29 September 2008
• Roland Paxton, "Stevenson, Thomas (1818-1887)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford: OUP, 2004. Retrieved on 11 October 2008

External links

Sources

• Works by & about Robert Louis Stevenson at Internet Archive (scanned books original editions color illustrated)
• Works by Robert Louis Stevenson at Google Books (scanned books original editions)
• Works by Robert Louis Stevenson at Project Gutenberg (plain text and HTML)
• Works by Robert Louis Stevenson, at The Online Books Page (plain text and HTML)
• Essays by Stevenson at Quotidiana.org
• 151 poems by Robert Louis Stevenson, at Poetry Archive
• "Henry David Thoreau: His Character and Opinions", by Robert Louis Stevenson
• Fables, by Robert Louis Stevenson, at The University of Wisconsin Digital Collections Center.
• Works by Robert Louis Stevenson in PDF at Ria Press.
• Stevenson's writings in Scots at ScotsteXt

Biographies and commentaries

• There are over 200 published biographies of RLS
• Robert Louis Stevenson: a record, an estimate, and a memorial, by Alexander H. Japp
• Robert Louis Stevenson, a biography by Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
• Robert Louis Stevenson: a memoir (1895), by Edmund Gosse who knew Stevenson personally.
• The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson (1913) by Graham Balfour, Stevenson's cousin.
• Robert Louis Stevenson: biography (1911), by Edmund Gosse, from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition
• Robert Louis Stevenson, biography from the Dictionary of Literary Biography, 1987.

Misc

• Robert Louis Stevenson Website. Extensive information including the most complete collection of derivative works. Maintained by editor of the Journal of Stevenson Studies.
• The bell rock lighthouse and the Stevensons: the history of an old sea tower and a family of engineers
• Robert Louis Stevenson trail GR70
• Silverado Museum, California, 'Devoted to Robert Louis Stevenson'.
• The Genealogy of the Balfour Family
• Works by or about Robert Louis Stevenson in libraries (WorldCat catalog)