Biographical milestones

Birth of Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson in Edinburgh into an upper-middle class Presbyterian family.
His father, Thomas, was an internationally acclaimed lighthouse manufacturer.
He inherited his fragile health from his mother, Margaret Balfour.
Stevenson spent most of his childhood in his bedroom.

He wrote his first novel, The Plague Cellar at the age of 14.

A student of “Science and Technology” but his underlying dream was to be an author.
A bohemian lifestyle in the rougher districts of Edinburgh..

Publication of his first essays, which met with praise from critics.

Passed his law exams and became a lawyer. Visit to Barbizon with his cousin Bob and his painter friends.

Failure of his first cases at the bar. He turned his back on a legal profession.

Canoe trip along the canals and rivers of Belgium and Northern France.
At Grez-sur-Loing he met and fell in love with Fanny Osbourne (married, mother of two children).

A bohemian lifestyle between England and France, where he met up with Fanny again.

Publication of An Inland Voyage.

Departure of Fanny and her children for America.

Visit to Monastier- sur-Gazeille and then a walking tour across the Cévennes.

Publication of Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes.

Departure for California, behind his parents’ backs. Voyage in a ship with emigrants and then by train across the American continent.

Stayed in California, penniless, ill (pleurisy, malaria, serious haemorrhages…) and cut off by his family and friends who disapproved of this trip. He waited for Fanny to get her divorce.

His parents, shocked by his state of health, accepted his marriage.

Marriage on 19 May in the USA.
“Honeymoon” in an abandoned mine, in Silverado..

Louis and Fanny travelled to Scotland..

Summer in the Highlands.

Cure in Davos, Switzerland for his health.

Return to Edinburgh, via Paris and Barbizon.

Summer in the Highlands.
He wrote the first 15 chapters of Treasure Island.

Second winter in Davos.
Completion of Treasure Island.

Set up home in the south of France near to Marseille.
Return of the haemorrhages.

Moved to Hyères, Chalet ‘La Solitudee.
Publication of his first novel Treasure Island.

Publication of The Silverado Squatters.

In very poor health, he returned to England.

Set up home in Bournemouth, south of England..

Haemorrhages, fevers, bronchitis…
Wrote essays and novels unceasingly.
Met Henry James.
Publication in 85 of Prince Otto, The Dynamiter and A Child’s Garden of Verses (poems).
Publication in 86 of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Kidnapped!.
Publication in 87 of The Merry men and Other Tales (short stories).

Death of Stevenson’s father, Thomas Stevenson.

Departure of the Stevenson family for America.

Arrival in New York.
He found that he had become famous in America.
A publisher ordered a series of essays.

Installation on the banks of Lake Saranac, in the Adirondack mountains.
Began writing The Master of Ballantrae.

Return to New York.
Proposal by Mac Clure of $15000 for a series of travel letters.
Publication of The Black Arrow.

Voyage on the merchant vessel Equator.
Stopovers in Butaritari and Apemama where he began work on The Wrecker.

Arrived in Apia, capital of Upolu a Samoan island.
Bought an abandoned estate: Vailima.

Travelled through the Samoan islands to Sydney aboard a merchant vessel.
In Sydney, Stevenson fell ill.

Boarded an old cargo ship, the Janet Nicholl, to return to the warmth of the tropics.
Voyage to the Samoan Islands, Gilbert, Marshall, New Caledonia before returning to Sydney where he fell ill yet again: he could no longer leave the South Seas…

Fanny cleared, burned, dug, planted and oversaw the construction of a new, large house.
Publication of The South Seas.

Political engagement for the Samoans against the Germans, English and Americans in the sector. Nearly banished from the island.
Writing of A Footnote to History, The Beach of Falesa and Catriona.
Publication of  The Wrecker, A Footnote to History and Across the Plains (his trip across America by train in 1879).

Severely affected by the flu epidemic which ravaged the island.

Attempted to return to Sydney where he fell ill immediately upon his arrival, forcing him to return home.

Fanny suffered from depression.
Publication of Island Night Entertainment.

War broke out in the islands. Mataafa, chief of the rebels and Stevenson’s friend was deported to the Marshall Islands.

Collapsed further to severe haemorrhages.

Left for Hawaii to attempt a cure but was forced to return to Vailima.
Publication of Catriona.

Exhausted, he continued to write Saint Ives, an historical novel and Weir of Hermiston.
Publication of The Ebb Tide.

Stevenson died further to a stroke.
He was buried the next day on the summit of Mount Vaea overlooking the sea, according to his last wishes.