Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) was a Scottish novelist, essayist, poet and travel writer, born and educated in Edinburgh. Few writers have packed more into less time: dogged by serious bronchial illness for much of his life, he nevertheless wrote prolifically and travelled widely, mixing in London literary circles as a young man – where W. E. Henley, one of his early champions, is thought perhaps to have inspired Long John Silver – before settling in Samoa in 1890. He died there of a stroke in 1894, aged just 44.
His name rests on books that simply refuse to age: Treasure Island (1883), Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), Kidnapped (1886) and the poetry collection A Child’s Garden of Verses (1885). In his final years, troubled by growing European and American influence in the South Seas, his writing turned from romance and adventure towards a darker realism. Critical fashion has blown hot and cold since his death, but readers never wavered: by 2018 he ranked among the most translated authors in the world, just behind Dickens.
6 hours and 44 minutes
