Adventure Stories 04
The Adventure of the Hansom Cab
by Robert Louis Stevenson
About the author
Robert Louis Stevenson is remembered as one of the great Scottish
authors, who wrote some of the most famous adventure stories in the
English language.
Born Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson in Edinburgh in 1850, his
father was a wealthy engineer and a lighthouse designer. Robert was
his only child. From his early childhood Robert suffered from weak
· lungs and poor general health, and his education was interrupted.
Often in bed at home, his guardian and nurse, Alison Cunningham,
read him stories. The young boy dreamt of adventure and travel.
Initially following in his father's footsteps, Robert studied
engineering at university, but he did not complete his studies. Telling
his father he wanted to be a writer, Stevenson then agreed to study
law so that he would have a profession. But his life after that was far
from conventional. He changed his middle name 'Lewis' to the French
spelling, Louis, and became a flamboyant figure, known in Edinburgh
society for his velvet coat. The Scottish climate and strict social
conventions did not suit him, however, and he often went in search
of new places, societies and lifestyles, hoping that his health might
improve in a warmer country.
Stevenson's travels started in Europe, and he visited fashionable
health resorts on the French Riviera1 with his parents. Despite his
health problems, Stevenson still had a spirit of adventure, and in 1876
he canoed through the rivers and canals of Belgium and north-east
France with a friend. Two years later, he walked across the hills and.
valleys of the Cevennes region of southern France, this time with a
donkey for company. But it Wl;I.S while staying in a bohemian2 artists'
colony in Grez in northern France that Stevenson met the American
artist Fanny Vandegrift Osbourne, who was in the country with her
two ypung-children. In 1879, when Fanny returned to the United
States, Stevenson followed her, sailing to New York and then taking
1 the part of coastal south-east France stretching from the Italian border in the east to
Hyeres in the west
2 living or behaving in an informal way that is considered typical of artists and writers
The Adventure of the Hansom Cab I 115