Robert Louis Stevenson Research Paper

Robert Louis Stevenson is a Scottish writer who was born an only child into a middle-class family on November 13, 1850 in Edinburgh, Scotland. His father was Thomas Stevenson and his mother Margaret Balfour. Although he chose a career in writing, his family originally wanted him to follow the family career and become an engineer. He was born with a genetic illness where he inherited his mother’s weak lungs; therefore, a significant portion of his early life was spent getting cared for. In fact, one of his books, A Child's Garden of Verses, was dedicated to his childhood nurse, Alison Cunningham.

At Edinburgh university, he began as an engineering major and switched to a law major after some conflict with his father about his religion and his desire to pursue a career in writing. Stevenson’s health condition hindered many aspects of his life like his education where he had to miss school and transfer around to get better. However, his sickness also gave him some benefits. Because he was sick so often, he got to travel around and experience things that would help influence his writing.

His early writing was mainly his

There he met a married American woman named Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne. Despite her being a married mother and eleven years older than him, they became close friends in a couple years. In 1878, she returned to America, leaving Stevenson in love and halfway across the world from her. However, a couple months later Stevenson received a telegram from her, telling him of her divorce and illness. At this, Stevenson left on a sudden and difficult journey to America; consequently, he arrived at her home sick and was cared for by Fanny over a period of eight months. During these eight months, he wrote The Amateur Emigrant (1895), which was not officially published until a year after his death in 1894. Robert and Fanny married in