60 Fun Facts About Robert Louis Stevenson

What was the family profession that Stevenson's father, grandfather and uncles all followed?

Lighthouse engineering. His grandfather Robert Stevenson built the Bell Rock lighthouse, but Louis, sent to learn the trade on harbour works, wrote that he already had a 'private determination to be an author'.

Which birth name, his mother's maiden name, did Stevenson drop and give to Kidnapped's hero David?

Balfour. He also respelled Lewis as Louis at about 18, yet only the spelling changed: his family and close friends went on calling him Lewis all his life.

Which innkeeper's son, cabin boy of the Hispaniola, narrates most of Treasure Island?

Jim Hawkins. Hiding in the ship's apple barrel, he overhears Long John Silver plotting mutiny, and his warning saves the squire's party.

To whom did Stevenson dedicate A Child's Garden of Verses (1885)?

His nurse Alison Cunningham. 'Cummy' nursed him through his sick childhood nights, reading him the Bible and Bunyan, and his dedication thanks her as 'My second mother, my first wife'.

Stevenson's first publication, printed at his father's expense when he was 16, recounted which event?

The Covenanters' rebellion of 1666. Raised on tales of these Presbyterian rebels, he wrote The Pentland Rising for the 200th anniversary of their defeat at Rullion Green.

In Treasure Island, what do pirates hand a shipmate to depose him or mark him for death?

A black spot. Stevenson invented the device for the novel; when Silver's crew hand him one cut from a Bible page, he warns them that spoiling a Bible will bring them bad luck.

Having abandoned his first degree, Stevenson qualified in July 1875 for what?

The Scottish bar. A brass plate reading 'R.L. Stevenson, Advocate' went up on the family door, but writing won: within two weeks he had left for France.

The year his father found his club's rule to disregard everything their parents had taught them, Stevenson confessed what to him?

Loss of faith. He belonged to the LJR (Liberty, Justice, Reverence) League, founded with friends in an Edinburgh pub; the news that he no longer believed devastated his devout father and set off a bitter quarrel.

Which poet, met in hospital, did Stevenson call his model for Long John Silver?

W. E. Henley. Stevenson told him that 'the sight of your maimed strength and masterfulness' begot Silver, but the two quarrelled in 1888 and the friendship never fully recovered.

Stevenson's first travel book, An Inland Voyage (1878), recounts a journey by what means through Belgium and France?

Canoe. On the flooded Oise a fallen tree swept Stevenson out of his canoe, the Arethusa; he clung to the trunk and proposed his own epitaph: 'He clung to his paddle.'

What was the name of the donkey in Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes?

Modestine. He bought her for 65 francs and a glass of brandy to carry his huge sleeping sack, and wept after selling her twelve days later.

In which French village did Stevenson first meet his future wife Fanny Osbourne?

Grez-sur-Loing. Fanny, an American separated from her husband, had come to its artists' colony to paint; three years later Stevenson crossed an ocean and a continent to join her in California.

Why did Stevenson pay extra for the Devonia's second cabin over steerage when crossing the Atlantic in 1879?

For a table to write at. The second cabin was almost indistinguishable from the steerage around it, but on the voyage he finished 'The Story of a Lie' before the journey broke his health.

Goat ranchers near which California town nursed Stevenson back to health after he crossed America in 1879?

Monterey. Camping in the hills, he fell so ill that two ranchers took him in, and one, an old bear-hunter, acted as his doctor; in town he lodged at the French Hotel, since preserved as the Stevenson House museum.

In which American city did Stevenson marry the newly divorced Fanny Osbourne in May 1880?

San Francisco. He called it 'a sort of marriage in extremis': Fanny, 40, wed him at 29 when he was 'a mere complication of cough and bones', and he credited her care with keeping him alive.

Where did Stevenson and Fanny spend their 1880 honeymoon?

An abandoned mining camp on Mount Saint Helena. Short of money, the couple and Fanny's son squatted rent-free in the deserted Silverado mine's bunkhouse, hauling water past rattlesnakes; the book is The Silverado Squatters.

Which name did Stevenson give his Bournemouth house, after a Hebridean landmark?

Skerryvore. His father bought the house as a present for Fanny; there Louis wrote Jekyll and Hyde and Kidnapped while so often bedridden that he recalled living 'like a weevil in a biscuit'.

Which American novelist came most evenings to talk at the Stevensons' Bournemouth dinner table from 1885?

Henry James. He was in Bournemouth to be near his invalid sister Alice, and the Stevensons kept an armchair that had been Louis's grandfather's as 'Henry James's chair'.

Which working title did Stevenson give Treasure Island, after Long John Silver's job on the Hispaniola?

The Sea Cook. Stevenson named the tale for his one-legged cook; by his own account it was the editor of Young Folks who deleted that first title.

Under what pseudonym was Treasure Island first serialised in the magazine Young Folks?

Captain George North. Under that name the serial ran an obscure course in Young Folks, drawing 'not the least attention' by Stevenson's account, and the book followed two years later under his own name.

Which watercolour from a wet 1881 holiday with his stepson set Stevenson writing Treasure Island?

A map of an island. Its harbours and names suggested the plot, and the whole household joined in: his father spent most of a day listing the contents of Billy Bones's sea chest, which went into the book.

What is the name of the inn where Treasure Island opens and where Billy Bones lodges?

The Admiral Benbow. The old seaman Billy Bones hides out there, paying the landlord's son a silver fourpenny a month to watch for 'a seafaring man with one leg'.

Who captains the Hispaniola on the voyage to Treasure Island?

Alexander Smollett. Before sailing he tells the squire he likes neither the cruise nor the men, and complains that every hand aboard already knows they are after treasure.

Which marooned former pirate on Treasure Island has a craving for cheese?

Ben Gunn. Marooned for three years, he dreams of toasted cheese; he had already dug up the treasure and carried it to his cave, which is why the pirates find the pit empty.

Long John Silver's parrot is named after which dead pirate captain?

Flint. Silver's parrot, Cap'n Flint, shrieks 'Pieces of eight!', and that cry in the dark gives the young narrator away when he stumbles into the pirates' camp.

Stevenson admitted that Long John Silver's parrot 'once belonged to' which earlier castaway of fiction?

Robinson Crusoe. Stevenson shrugged off that debt and the skeleton 'conveyed from Poe', but confessed that Billy Bones and his chest came straight from Washington Irving, a borrowing he spotted only years later.

What is the profession of Gabriel John Utterson in Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde?

Lawyer. Utterson keeps Jekyll's will, which leaves everything to the unknown Mr Hyde, and his unease about that document is what sets him hunting for Hyde.

By Stevenson's own account, where did the central idea for Jekyll and Hyde come from?

A dream. Short of money and racking his brains for a plot, he dreamed the scene at the window and Hyde swallowing the powder to change in front of his pursuers; the rest, he said, he wrote awake.

What did Stevenson reportedly do with the first draft of Jekyll and Hyde after Fanny criticised it?

Burned it. By the family's account he threw the draft on the fire after Fanny said he had missed the allegory, then rewrote the whole tale within days; no direct evidence of the burning survives.

Whom does Mr Hyde beat to death with a cane in Jekyll and Hyde?

Sir Danvers Carew. A maid at her window watches Hyde club the old MP in the lane; half the broken cane, left in the gutter, is one Utterson had given Jekyll.

Which newspaper's January 1886 review started Jekyll and Hyde selling 40,000 copies in six months?

The Times. Its notice gave the shilling book its start; within months it was being quoted from pulpits and read, his biographer wrote, 'by those who never read fiction'.

Which real 18th-century killing in the Highlands is woven into the plot of Kidnapped?

The Appin Murder. In 1752 the government factor Colin Campbell, the 'Red Fox', was shot by a hidden marksman; in the novel David sees him fall and has to flee as a suspected accomplice.

What is the first name of the uncle who has David kidnapped in Stevenson's Kidnapped?

Ebenezer. He lives on porridge and small beer in the ruinous House of Shaws, and sends his nephew up an unfinished stair-tower in the dark, hoping he will fall to his death.

What is the name of the brig on which David is carried off in Kidnapped?

Covenant. The brig strikes a reef off Mull and David is washed up on the islet of Erraid, where he starves for days before learning he could have walked ashore at low tide.

Which 1893 novel by Stevenson continues the story of Kidnapped?

Catriona. It opens the minute Kidnapped ends; David is kidnapped all over again to keep him from testifying at a murder trial, and falls for Catriona Drummond, granddaughter of Rob Roy.

Which yacht did Stevenson charter in June 1888 for his first Pacific voyage?

Casco. The 95-foot schooner carried Stevenson, his wife, his mother and his stepson out through the Golden Gate; the sea restored his health, and he never came back from the Pacific.

Which Hawaiian monarch became Stevenson's good friend during his Pacific wanderings?

King Kalākaua. Stevenson was presented at ʻIolani Palace within days of landing and feasted at the royal boathouse; he also befriended the king's half-Scottish niece, Princess Kaʻiulani, and wrote her a farewell poem.

What game did Stevenson play with the girls at the leper settlement on Molokaʻi in 1889?

Croquet. He rode over to the Sisters' home at Kalaupapa and played with seven of the girls in 90-degree heat, then asked friends in Britain to send scraps for their dolls' dresses.

At which estate above Apia did Stevenson build his Samoan home in 1890?

Vailima. He signed the deed in January 1890 and moved into the main house in April 1891; the cost of the estate and its large household kept him writing under pressure for the rest of his life.

What does 'Tusitala', the Samoan name Stevenson took, mean?

Teller of Tales. The affection was mutual: chiefs he had helped while they were political prisoners built a road to his house in thanks and called it the Road of the Loving Heart.

Which of Stevenson's stories was translated into Samoan in 1891 for a missionary magazine?

The Bottle Imp. The missionary Claxton put it into Samoan for O le Sulu Samoa with Stevenson going over the translation himself; he said he had designed the tale for a Polynesian audience.

Which Samoan chief did Stevenson risk deportation to visit and go on supporting after his defeat in 1893?

Mataafa. Stevenson rode through the rain to his camp and pleaded his cause in letters to the London press; after losing the 1893 war the chief was exiled to the Marshall Islands.

Stevenson's 1892 chronicle of great-power rivalry and the first Samoan Civil War was titled what?

A Footnote to History. Subtitled Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa, it was written to protest the powers' misrule; afterwards he told a friend, 'I used to think meanly of the plumber; but how he shines beside the politician!'

Which unfinished novel, worked on the morning of the day he died, did Stevenson think his best work?

Weir of Hermiston. 'It's so good that it frightens me,' he is reported to have said; it breaks off mid-sentence, yet the fragment is often praised as his masterpiece.

What was Stevenson doing when he collapsed at home on 3 December 1894?

Helping his wife prepare dinner. By his stepson's account he had fetched a bottle of old Burgundy and was helping with a salad on the verandah when he put his hands to his head, asked 'Do I look strange?' and fell.

On which mountain did the Samoans bury Stevenson, carrying his body up on their shoulders?

Mount Vaea. Samoans cut a path up the steep forest so that he could be buried on the summit as he had wished; lines from his own poem 'Requiem' are carved on the tomb.

Whose reputation did Stevenson defend in a furious 1890 open letter to a Honolulu clergyman named Dr Hyde?

Father Damien. Hyde had called the late priest of Molokaʻi 'a coarse, dirty man'; Stevenson's reply was so scathing that he expected to be sued for libel, though no suit came.

With whom did Stevenson co-write The Wrong Box (1889) and The Wrecker (1892)?

Lloyd Osbourne. His stepson wrote the first drafts and Stevenson rewrote them; The Wrong Box is a black comedy about a tontine, a fund whose whole pot goes to the last member left alive.

Which sculptor designed the 1904 bronze relief memorial to Stevenson in St Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh?

Augustus Saint-Gaudens. The American had said he would go a thousand miles for a sitting; in 1887 he sketched the sick author propped up in bed in New York, and reworked that portrait for the cathedral.

Which fellow Scot, a rising novelist from Kirriemuir, exchanged letters with Stevenson in Samoa but never met him?

J. M. Barrie. Stevenson urged him to visit, and Barrie recalled the directions he was sent: take the boat from California, 'and then my place is the second to the left'.

Where in New York State did Stevenson spend the bitter winter of 1887–88 at a cure cottage?

Saranac Lake. Bound for Colorado, he was steered instead to the new sanatorium village in the Adirondacks; his health improved in the Arctic cold, and pacing the verandah one night he began planning The Master of Ballantrae.

UNESCO's Index Translationum ranks Stevenson 26th among the world's most-translated authors, one place behind which writer?

Charles Dickens. Readers stayed loyal while critics did not: the 2,000-page Oxford Anthology of English Literature of 1973 never mentions Stevenson once.

When Stevenson was six, his family moved to which sunnier Edinburgh address?

17 Heriot Row. The damp of the previous house had made him ill; from the new nursery window he watched Leerie the lamplighter on his round, the scene he turned into the poem 'The Lamplighter'.

From 1867 to 1880 the Stevensons leased a summer cottage in which village at the foot of the Pentland Hills?

Swanston. The cottage, built by Edinburgh's magistrates beside the city's springs as a place for 'junketing', later became the heroine's home in his novel St. Ives.

In 1868 Stevenson spent six weeks in which Caithness town, where his family built a sea wall?

Wick. Bored by the harbour works, he at least got to go down in a diving suit beside the unfinished breakwater, and he counted that dive among the best things his training ever gave him.

Fanny Sitwell, whom Stevenson met in 1873 and adored, later married which of his mentors?

Sidney Colvin was already close to Sitwell, who was estranged from her husband, when Stevenson met them both in 1873; the pair married only in July 1903, thirty years on.

In November 1873 the ailing Stevenson was sent to recuperate in which Riviera resort near the French–Italian border?

Menton was familiar ground, since he had twice stayed there as a boy with his parents; this time he came home in better health in April 1874 and returned to his studies.

In his essay The Lantern-Bearers, Stevenson appears to take which French novelist to task for dwelling on life's sordid side?

Émile Zola, he wrote, could turn the boys' hidden lanterns into 'a gem of literary art' and still miss the point: 'to miss the joy is to miss all'.

Stevenson's novel Prince Otto (1885) is set in which imaginary Germanic state?

Grünewald is a state the novel's first line says you will 'seek in vain upon the map of Europe'; by the end a revolution has turned Prince Otto's tiny realm into a republic.

Which Cornish writer completed Stevenson's unfinished novel St Ives after his death?

Arthur Quiller-Couch, who wrote as 'Q', supplied the closing chapters; Stevenson, unable to write, had dictated the first thirty to his stepdaughter Belle before he died.