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Of
the many famous sons and daughters of Edinburgh, Robert Louis
Stevenson is among the best known. Most people have read Treasure
Island and Kidnapped. What is less generally known, perhaps,
is that Stevenson was a fine writer of short stories and essays,
and a formidable journalist. He was also a lively letter writer.
Stevenson was always a fine stylist, able to tell an exciting
tale.
He
was born in 1850 at 8 Howard Place, Inverleith, a short distance
from the Royal Botanic Gardens. In 1853 the family moved across
the way to 1 Inverleith Terrace. Though larger, the new house
was damp and more exposed than the Stevensons' former home
and medical advice suggested the family move to a more salubrious
home. When Louis (as he was always called) was about seven
the family moved up the hill to 17 Heriot Row.
Intended
for lighthouse engineering, like his father, Robert rebelled.
Even the law course at Edinburgh University was not to his
taste. He made a few attempts to practise, and did have one
client, but he regarded the completion of his studies as a
fulfilment of a bargain with his father. Nevertheless he was
very proud of a brass plate reading R L Stevenson Advocate
which was placed at No. 17. Writing was his passion. Stevenson
was a bohemian. He did not share his family's strong religious
beliefs. Yet his first printed work was The Pentland Rising,
set in the seventeenth century, which dealt with the Covenanters.
He
fell in love with a married American woman, Fanny Osbourne.
They were married in 1880, after she obtained a divorce. Shortly
afterwards, Stevenson was diagnosed with tuberculosis. For
the next few years the family travelled. Stevenson wrote voraciously
but it was never easy. Excessive writing spells produced strong
emotions and these, in turn, serious haemorrhages.
He
travelled widely in the United States and the islands of the
Pacific, finally settling in Samoa. Although in the Pacific,
he wrote stories set mainly in Scotland. When he died suddenly,
of cerebral haemorrhage, he was only 44 years old. He was
writing The Weir of Hermiston.
His
reputation followed him to Samoa. The local people revered
him and named him Tusitala. That was the nearest they could
get to pronouncing Storyteller.
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