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STEVENSON, ROBERT LEWIS BALFOUR (1850...

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Originally appearing in Volume V25, Page 910 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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STEVENSON, See also:ROBERT See also:LEWIS See also:BALFOUR (1850-1894) , See also:British essayist, novelist and poet, was the only See also:child of See also:Thomas Stevenson, See also:civil engineer, and his wife, See also:Margaret See also:Isabella Balfour. He was See also:born at 8 See also:Howard See also:Place, See also:Edinburgh, on the 13th of See also:November 185o. He suffered from See also:infancy from See also:great fragility of See also:health, and nearly died in 1858 of gastric See also:fever, which See also:left much constitutional weakness behind it. From the See also:age of six he showed a disposition to write. He went to school, mainly in Edinburgh, from 1858 to 1867, but his See also:ill-health prevented his learning much, and his teachers, as his See also:mother afterwards said, " liked talking to him better than teaching him." He often accompanied his See also:father on his See also:official visits to the See also:light-houses of the Scottish See also:coast and on longer journeys, thus See also:early accustoming himself to travel. As his health improved it was hoped that he would be able to adopt the See also:family profession of civil See also:engineering, and in 1868 he went to See also:Anstruther and then to See also:Wick as a See also:pupil engineer. In 1871 he had so far advanced as to receive the See also:silver See also:medal of the Edinburgh Society of Arts for a See also:paper suggesting improvements in lighthouse apparatus. But See also:long before this he had started as an author. His earliest publication, the See also:anonymous pamphlet of The Pentland Rising, had appeared in 1866, and The Charity See also:Bazaar, a trifle in which his future manner is happily displayed, in 1868. From about the age of eighteen he dropped his baptismal names of Lewis Balfour and called himself Robert See also:Louis, but was mostly known to his relatives and intimate See also:friends as " Louis." Although he greatly enjoyed the outdoor business of the engineer's See also:life it strained his See also:physical endurance too much, and in 1871 was reluctantly exchanged for study at the Edinburgh See also:bar, to which he was called in 1875. In 1873 he first met Mr See also:Sidney See also:Colvin, who was to prove the closest of his friends and at last the loyal and admirable editor of his See also:works and his See also:correspondence; and to this See also:time are attributed several of the most valuable friendships of Stevenson's life. He was now labouring, with extreme assiduity, to ground himself in the forms and habits of See also:literary See also:style.

In 1875 appeared, anonymously, his See also:

Appeal to the See also:Clergy of the See also:Church of See also:Scotland, and in that See also:year he made the first of many visits to the See also:forest of See also:Fontainebleau. Meanwhile at See also:Mentone in the See also:winter of 1873—1874 he had grown in mind under the See also:shadow of extreme physical weakness, and in the following See also:spring began to contribute essays of high originality to one or two See also:periodicals, of which the Cornlzill, then edited by See also:Sir See also:Leslie See also:Stephen, was at first the most important. Stevenson made no See also:attempt to practice at the bar, and the next years were spent in wanderings in See also:France, See also:Germany and Scotland. Records of these journeys, and of the See also:innocent adventures which they encouraged, were given to the See also:world as An Inland Voyage in 1878, and as Travels with a Donkey in the See also:Cevennes in 1879. During these four years Stevenson's health, which was always bettered by life out of doors, gave him little trouble. It was now recognized that he was to be an author, and he contributed many essays, tales and fantasies to various See also:journals and magazines. At Fontainebleau in 1876 Stevenson had met Mrs Osbourne, the See also:lady who afterwards became his wife; she returned to her See also:home in See also:California in 1878, and in See also:August of the following year, alarmed at See also:news of her health, Stevenson hurriedly crossed the See also:Atlantic. He travelled, from lack of means, as a steerage passenger and then as an emigrant, and in See also:December, after hardships which seriously affected his health, he arrived in See also:San Francisco. In May 188o he married, and moved to the desolate See also:mining-See also:camp which he has described in The Silverado Squatters. As Mr Colvin has well said, these months in the See also:west of See also:America were spent " under a heavy combined See also:strain of See also:personal anxiety and literary effort." Some of his most poignant and most enchanting letters were written during this romantic See also:period of his life. In the autumn of 188o he returned to Scotland, with his wife and step-son, who were received at once into the Edinburgh See also:household of his parents. But the See also:condition of his health continued to be very alarming, and they went almost immediately to See also:Davos, where he remained until the spring of 1881.

In this year was published Virginibus puerisque, the earliest collection of Stevenson's essays. He spent the summer months in Scotland, See also:

writing articles, poems, and above all his first See also:romance, The See also:Sea-See also:Cook, afterwards known as Treasure See also:Island; but he was driven back to Davos in See also:October. In 1882 appeared See also:Familiar Studies of Men and Books and New Arabian Nights. His two winters at Davos had done him some See also:good, but his summers in Scotland invariably undid the benefit. He therefore determined to reside wholly in the See also:south of See also:Europe, and in the autumn of 1882 he settled near See also:Marseilles. This did not suit him, but from See also:March 1883 to See also:July 1884 he was at home at a charming See also:house called La Solitude, above See also:Hyeres; this was in many ways to, be the happiest station in the painful and hurrying See also:pilgrimage of Stevenson's life. The Silverado Squatters was published in 1883, and also the more important Treasure Island, which made Stevenson for the first time a popular writer. He planned a vast amount of See also:work, but his schemes were all frustrated in See also:January 1884 by the most serious illness from which he had yet suffered. He was just pulled through, but the attack was followed by long prostration and incapacity for work, and by continued relapses. In July he was brought back to See also:England, and from this time until August 1887 Stevenson's home was at See also:Bournemouth. In 1885 he published, after long indecision, his See also:volume of poems, A Child's See also:Garden of Verses, an inferior See also:story, The See also:Body Snatcher, and that admirable romance, See also:Prince See also:Otto, in which the See also:peculiar quality of Stevenson's style was displayed at its highest. He also collaborated with W.

E. See also:

Henley in some plays, Beau See also:Austin, See also:Admiral See also:Guinea and Robert See also:Macaire. Early in 1886 he struck the public See also:taste with precision in his See also:wild symbolic See also:tale of The See also:Strange See also:Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr See also:Hyde. In the summer of the same year he published Kidnapped, which had been written at Bournemouth. This, however, was a period of great physical prostration, so that 1886 and 1887 were perforce among the least productive years of Stevenson's life. In the early months of 1887 Stevenson was particularly ill, and he was further prostrated by being summoned in May to the deathbed of his father, who had just returned to Edinburgh from the south. He printed privately as a pamphlet, in See also:June 1887, a brief and touching See also:sketch of his father. In July he published his volume of lyrical poems called Underwoods. The ties which See also:bound him to England were now severed, and his health was broken to such a discouraging degree that he determined to remove to another hemisphere. Accordingly, having disposed of Skerryvore, his house at Bournemouth, he sailed from See also:London, with his wife, mother and stepson, for New See also:York on the 17th of August 1887. He never set See also:foot in Europe again. His memoir of his friend See also:Professor Fleeming Jenkin was published soon after his departure.

After resting at See also:

Newport, he went for the winter to be under the care of a . physician at Saranac See also:Lake in the See also:Adirondacks for the winter. Here he was very quiet, and steadily active with his See also:pen, writing both the greater See also:part of the See also:Master of Ballantrae and many of his finest later essays. He had undertaken, for a See also:regular See also:payment greatly in excess of anything which he had hitherto received, to contribute a monthly See also:essay to Scribner's See also:Magazine, and these essays, twelve in number, were published continuously through-out the year 1888. Early in that year was begun The Wrong See also:Box, a farcical romance in which Mr See also:Lloyd Osbourne participated; Stevenson also began a romance about the See also:Indian See also:Mutiny, which he abandoned. His attitude about this time to life and experience is reflected in Pulvis et See also:umbra, one of the noblest of all his essays. In See also:April 1888 he was at the coast of New See also:jersey for some See also:weeks, and in June started for San Francisco, where he had ordered a See also:schooner, the " Casco," to be ready to receive him. On the 28th of the See also:month, he started, as Mr Colvin has said, " on what was only intended to be a See also:pleasure excursion .. . but turned into a voluntary See also:exile prolonged until the See also:hour of his See also:death ": he never again left the See also:waters of the Pacific. The " Casco " proceeded first to the See also:Marquesas, and south and See also:east to See also:Tahiti, passing before See also:Christmas northwards to See also:Honolulu, where Stevenson spent six months and finished The Master of Ballantrae and The Wrong Box. It was during this time that he paid his famous visit to the leper See also:settlement at Molokai. In 1889, " on a certain See also:bright June See also:day," the Stevensons sailed for the See also:Gilbert Islands, and after six months' cruising found themselves at See also:Samoa, where he landed for the first time about Christmas Day 1889. On this occasion, however, though strongly See also:drawn to the beautiful island, he stayed not longer than six weeks, and proceeded to See also:Sydney, where, early in 1890, he published, in a See also:blaze of righteous anger, his Father See also:Damien: an Open See also:Letter to the Rev.

Dr Hyde of Honolulu, in vindication of the memory of Father Damien and his work among the lepers of the Pacific. At Sydney he was very ill again: it was now obvious that his only See also:

chance of health See also:lay within the tropics. For nearly the whole of the year 1890 the Stevensons were cruising through unfamiliar archipelagos See also:ion See also:board a little trading steamer, the " See also:Janet Nicholl." Meanwhile his volume of See also:Ballads was published in London. The last four years of his unquiet life were spent at Samoa, in circumstances of such health and vigour as he had never previously enjoyed, and in surroundings singularly picturesque. It was in November 1890 that he made his See also:abode at Vailima, where he took a small barrack of a wooden box 500 ft. above the sea, and began to build himself a large house See also:close by. The natives gave him the name of Tusitala. His See also:character See also:developed unanticipated strength on the See also:practical See also:side; he became a vigorous employer of labour, an active planter, above all a powerful and benignant island chieftain. He gathered by degrees around him. " a See also:kind of feudal See also:clan of servants and retainers," and he plunged, with more generous ardour than coolness of See also:judgment, into the troubled politics of the See also:country. He took up the cause of the deposed See also:king Mataafa with extreme ardour, and he wrote a See also:book, A Footnote to See also:History: Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa (1892), in the endeavour to win over British sympathy to his native friends. In the autumn of this year he received a visit at Vailima from the countess of Jersey, in See also:company with whom and some others he wrote the See also:burlesque extravagance in See also:prose and See also:verse, called An See also:Object of Pity, privately printed in 1893 at Sydney. Whenever the cultivation of his See also:estate and the vigorous championship of his Samoan retainers gave him the leisure, Stevenson was during these years almost wholly occupied in writing romances of Scottish life.

The Wrecker, an adventurous tale of See also:

American life, which mainly belonged to an earlier time, was written in collaboration with Mr Lloyd Osbourne and finally published in 1892; and towards the close of that very eventful and busy year he began The See also:Justice Clerk, afterwards See also:Weir of Hermiston. A portion of the old See also:record of emigrant experiences in 1879, long suppressed for private reasons, also appeared in book See also:form in 1892. In 1893 Stevenson published the important Scottish romance of Catriona, written as a sequel to Kidnapped, and the three tales illustrative of Pacific Ocean character, Island Nights' Entertainments. But in 1893 the See also:uniform good See also:fortune which had attended the Stevensons since their settlement in Samoa began to be disturbed. The whole family at Vailima became ill, and the final subjugation of his protege Mataafa, and the destruction of his party in Samoan politics, deeply distressed and discouraged Stevenson. In a See also:series of letters to The Times he exposed the policy of the See also:chief justice, Mr Cedercrantz, and the See also:president of the See also:council, See also:Baron Senfft. He so influenced public See also:opinion that both were removed from See also:office. In the autumn of that year he went for a See also:change of See also:scene to the See also:Sandwich Islands, but was taken ill there, and was only too glad to return to Samoa. In 1894 he was greatly cheered by the See also:plan, suggested by friends in England and carried out by them with the greatest See also:energy, of the See also:noble collection of his works in twenty-eight volumes, since known as the Edinburgh See also:editions. In See also:September 1894 was published The Ebb See also:Tide, the latest of his books which he saw through the See also:press. Of Stevenson's daily avocations, and of the See also:temper of his mind through these years of romantic exile, a clear See also:idea may be obtained by the See also:posthumous Vailima Letters, edited by Mr Sidney Colvin in 1895. Through 1894 he was engaged in composing two romances, neither of which he lived to See also:complete.

He was dictating Weir of Hermiston, apparently in his usual health, on the day he died. This was the 3rd of December 1894; he was gaily talking on the See also:

verandah of his house at Vailima when he had a stroke of See also:apoplexy, from which he never recovered consciousness, and passed away painlessly in the course of the evening. His body was carried next day by sixty sturdy Samoans, who acknowledged Stevenson as their chief, to the See also:summit of the precipitous See also:peak of Vaea, where he had wished to be buried, and where they left him to See also:rest for ever with the Pacific Ocean at his feet. The See also:charm of the personal character of Stevenson and the romantic vicissitudes of his life are so predominant in the minds of all who knew him, or lived within earshot of his See also:legend, that they made the ultimate position which he will take in the history of See also:English literature somewhat difficult to decide. That he was the most attractive figure of a See also:man of letters in his See also:generation is admitted; and the acknowledged See also:fascination of his character was deepened, and was extended over an extremely wide circle of readers, by the publication in 1899 of his Letters, which have subdued even those who were rebellious to the entertainment of his books. It is therefore from the point of view of its " charm " that the See also:genius of Stevenson must be approached, and in this respect there was between himself and his books, his See also:manners and his style, his practice and his theory, a very unusual See also:harmony. Very few authors of so high a class have been so consistent, or have made their conduct so close a reflection of their See also:philosophy. This unity of the man in his work makes it difficult, for one who knew him, to be sure that one rightly gauges the purely literary significance of the latter. There are some living who still hear in every See also:page of Stevenson the See also:voice of the man himself, and see in every turn of his See also:language his flashing smile. So far, however, as it is possible to disengage one's self from this captivation, it may be said that the mingling of distinct and See also:original See also:vision with a singularly conscientious handling of the English language, in the sincere and wholesome self-consciousness of the strenuous artist, seems to be the central feature of Stevenson as a writer by profession. He was always assiduously graceful, always desiring to See also:present his idea, his See also:image, his rhapsody, in as persuasive a light as possible, and, particularly, with as much harmony as possible. He had mastered his manner and, as one may say, learned his See also:trade, in the exercise of See also:criticism and the reflective parts of literature, before he surrendered himself to that powerful creative impulse which had long been tempting him, so that when, in mature life, he essayed the See also:portraiture of invented character he came to it unhampered by any imperfection of language.

This distinguished mastery of style, and love of it for its own See also:

sake within the See also:bounds of good sense and literary decorum, gave him a pre-See also:eminence among the story-tellers of his time. No doubt it is still by his romances that Stevenson keeps the wider circle of his readers. But many hold that his letters and essays are finer contributions to pure literature, and that on these exquisite mixtures of See also:wisdom, pathos, See also:melody and See also:humour his fame is likely to be ultimately based. In verse he had a See also:touch far less sure than in prose. Here we find less See also:evidence of sedulous workmanship, yet not infrequently a piercing sweetness, a See also:depth of emotion, a sincere and spontaneous lovableness, which are irresistibly touching and inspiring. The personal See also:appearance of Stevenson has often been described: he was tall, extremely thin, dark-haired, restless, compelling See also:attention with the lustre of his wonderful See also:brown eyes. In the existing portraits of him those who never saw him are See also:apt to discover a strangeness which seems to them sinister or even affected. This is a consequence of the false stability of portraiture; since in life the unceasing See also:movement of light in the eyes, the mobility of the mouth, and the sympathy and sweetness which radiated from all the features, precluded the faintest notion of want of sincerity. Whatever may be the ultimate See also:order of reputation among his various books, or what-ever posterity may ultimately see See also:fit to ordain as regards the popularity of any of them, it is difficult to believe that the time will ever come in which Stevenson will not be remembered as the most beloved of the writers of that age which he did so much to cheer and stimulate by his example. His See also:cousin R. A. M.

Stevenson (1847–1900) was an accomplished See also:

art-critic, who in 1889 became professor of See also:fine arts at University See also:College, See also:Liverpool; he published several works on art (See also:Rubens, 1898; Velasquez, 1895; See also:Raeburn, 1900). R. L. Stevenson's other works include: Memories and Portraits (1887) ; The Merry Men and other Tales and Fables (1887) ; The See also:Black Arrow (1888) ; Edinburgh: Picturesque Notes (1889) ; Across the Plains, with other Memories and Essays (1892), and the posthumous works, Songs of Travel and other Verses (1896), St Ives (1899), completed by Sir A. T. Quilier See also:Couch; A Stevenson Medley (1899) ; In the South Seas: experiences . on the " Casco " (1888) and the See also:Equator (1889) (1900). See the Letters of Stevenson to his Family (1899), with the See also:critical and See also:biographical See also:preface by Mr Sidney Colvin; Vailima Letters, to Sidney Colvin (1895), and the Life of Robert Louis Stevenson by See also:Graham Balfour (1901). See also Professor See also:Walter See also:Raleigh, R. L. Stevenson (1895), and Memories of Vailima (1903), by Isobel Strong and Lloyd Osbourne. A complete edition of Stevenson's works was issued at Edinburgh in 1894-1898. A Bibliography of the works of R.

L. Stevenson by See also:

Colonel W. F. Prideaux appeared in 1903. (E.

End of Article: STEVENSON, ROBERT LEWIS BALFOUR (1850-1894)

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