Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
Stevenson’s Background
• Robert Louis Stevenson was born on 13 November 1850 at 8
Howard Place, Edinburgh.
• Within three years the respiratory problems which plagued him
all his life began to appear.
• Confined to bed for long periods, he used his imagination to
take him to faraway places.
Stevenson’s Background
• Much of Stevenson’s adult life was spent travelling in search of
better health.
• He suffered from a chronic bronchial condition (possibly
tuberculosis).
• In 1888 Stevenson set out with his family for the South Seas.
Stevenson’s Background
• Stevenson spent the remainder of his life in Samoa, where he
was known affectionately as Tusitala – the storyteller.
• In 1894, he died suddenly from a brain haemorrhage, whilst
working on his latest novel, Weir of Hermiston, which was set in
Edinburgh and the Borders.
Stevenson in Samoa
Kidnapped
Many people know of
Stevenson’s work through
the numerous film
adaptations of his most
famous novels. Most
recently, an adaptation of
Kidnapped was shown on
BBC 1 during March 2005.
Kidnapped
• Kidnapped is Stevenson’s first novel to be set in Scotland.
• The action is triggered by a stolen inheritance, that of young
David Balfour, who subsequently becomes party to the daring
escapades of the proud Highland outlaw Alan Breck.
• Stevenson uses the relationship between these two characters
to reflect a divided Scotland.
Kidnapped
• Alan Breck represents the wild, romantic Highlands and the
Jacobite cause, whereas David Balfour represents the
respectable Lowland Scotland, loyal to the Hanoverian
monarchy.
• This exploration of the differences within Scotland, combined
with vivid descriptions of the Scottish landscape, make this
novel much more than a simple adventure story.
Treasure Island
From Treasure Island
Chapter 4, The Sea Chest
Overcoming a strong repugnance, I tore open his shirt at the
neck; and there, sure enough, hanging to a bit of tarry string,
which I cut with his own gully, we found the key. At this triumph
we were filled with hope, and hurried upstairs without delay to
the little room where he had slept so long and where his box
had stood since the day of his arrival.
From Treasure Island
It was like any other seaman’s chest on the outside, the initial B
burned on the top of it with a hot iron and the corners
somewhat smashed and broken as by long, rough usage.
‘Give me the key‘, said my mother; and though the lock was
very stiff, she had turned it and thrown back the lid in a
twinkling. A strong smell of tobacco and tar rose from the
interior, but nothing was to be seen on the top except a suit of
very good clothes, carefully brushed and folded. They had
never been worn, my mother said.
From Treasure Island
Under that, the miscellany began – a quadrant, a tin cannikin,
several sticks of tobacco, two brace of very handsome pistols, a
piece of bar silver, an old Spanish watch and some other
trinkets of little value and mostly of foreign make, a pair of
compasses mounted with brass and five or six curious West
Indian shells. I have often wondered since why he should have
carried about these shells with him in his wandering, guilty and
hunted life.
‘From a Railway Carriage’
Faster than fairies, faster than witches,
Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;
And charging along like troops in a battle,
All through the meadows the horse and cattle:
All of the sights of the hill and the plain
Fly as thick as driving rain;
And ever again, in the wink of an eye,
Painted stations whistle by.
‘From a Railway Carriage’
Here is a child who clambers and scrambles,
All by himself and gathering brambles;
Here is a tramp who stands and gazes;
And there is the green for stringing the daisies!
Here is a cart run away in the road
Lumping along with man and load;
And here is a mill and there is a river:
Each a glimpse and gone for ever!
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis
Stevenson
dictating to
Belle, his step
daughter and
secretary.
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
• Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is the tale of a doctor called Henry
Jekyll, who concocts a potion that when drunk transforms him
into Edward Hyde.
• The main idea of the book deals with an interesting theme: that
within the same person there exists a divided self, and when
one part is to the fore the other ceases to exist.
• Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is a thriller. The reader is kept guessing
about the relationship between Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde right up
to the end.
Stevenson
Describing Edinburgh
‘She is liable to be beaten upon by all the winds that blow, to be
drenched with rain, to be buried in the cold sea fogs out of the
east, and powdered with the snow as it comes flinging
southward from the Highland hills. The weather is raw and
boisterous in winter, shifty and ungenial in summer, and a
downright meteorological purgatory in the spring.
Stevenson
Describing Edinburgh
‘The delicate die early, and I, as a survivor, among bleak winds
and plumping rain, have been sometimes tempted to envy them
their fate. For all who love shelter and the blessings of the sun,
who hate dark weather and perpetual tilting against the squalls,
there could scarcely be found a more unhomely and harassing
pace of residence.’
from Edinburgh: Picturesque Notes (1878)