Robert Louis Stevenson

Alexander H. Japp's affectionate biographical study of Robert Louis Stevenson is both memorial and critical portrait, enriched by previously unpublished letters and intimate recollections. Drawing on his friendship with Stevenson and the influence of his earlier Thoreau studies, Japp traces the writer's broad sympathies, restless intellect, precarious health, and fierce devotion to work, showing how writing sustained him in body and spirit. He also preserves Stevenson's own gracious, self-correcting voice in correspondence that reveals humility, warmth, and eagerness for personal conversation. The book moves vividly through Stevenson's life at Braemar, where his wife Fanny and stepson Lloyd helped create the playful domestic atmosphere from which Treasure Island emerged. Japp recounts the novel's improvisational birth, its dramatic reading, and its eventual publication, while also remembering Stevenson's abandoned manuscripts, his early struggles, and the influence of his thoughtful father, Thomas Stevenson. Alongside this personal history runs a searching critical argument about art, morality, and drama, presenting Stevenson's genius as deepest when it probes the shadowed power of evil and the difficult claims of goodness. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.