Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Stevenson was born in Edinburgh in 1850. The son of a prosperous civil engineer, he was expected to follow the family profession, but was allowed to study law at Edinburgh University. Stevenson reacted strongly against the Presbyterian respectability of the city’s professional classes and this led to painful clashes with his parents. In his early twenties he became afflicted with a severe respiratory illness from which he was to suffer for the rest of his life; it was at this time that he determined to become a professional writer. The effects of the often harsh Scottish climate on his poor health forced him to spend long periods abroad. After a great deal of travelling he eventually settled in Samoa, where he died on 3 December 1894.

Stevenson’s Calvinistic upbringing gave him a preoccupation with pre-destination and a fascination with the presence of evil. In Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde he explores the darker side of the human psyche, and the character of the Master in The Master of Ballantrae (1889) was intended to be ‘all I know of the Devil’. Stevenson is well known for his novels of historical adventure, including Treasure Island (1883), Kidnapped (1886) and Catriona (1893). As Walter Allen comments in The English Novel, ‘His rediscovery of the art of narrative, of conscious and cunning calculation in telling a story so that the maximum effect of clarity and suspense is achieved, meant the birth of the novel of action as we know it.’ But these works also reveal his knowledge and feeling for the Scottish cultural past. During the last years of his life Stevenson’s creative range developed considerably, and The Beach of Falesá brought to fiction the kind of scene now associated with Conrad and Maugham. At the time of his death Robert Louis Stevenson was working on his unfinished masterpiece, Weir of Hermiston. He also wrote works of non-fiction, notably his descriptive and historical books on the South Seas area, A Footnote to History (1892) and In the South Seas (1896), as well as his celebrated defence of Father Damien, the Belgian priest who devoted his life to caring for lepers, in Father Damien; an open letter to the Reverend Hyde of Honolulu (1890).

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde Robert Louis Stevenson This classic horror story comes packaged with abridged and unabridged texts as well as teacher’s notes on CD-ROM. Read by the fantastic John Sessions, this atmospheric and thrilling story is brilliantly played out for the listener. Abridged audio edition. Read by John... Format: Cd-audio - Released: 01/06/2009 Lovereading Price: £8.24 - Saving £2.75 (25%)

Treasure Island Robert Louis Stevenson One of Dan Snow's favourite books. Marcus Sedgwick, July 2010 Guest Editor, says:"I continually list this book in my top five, because it's my belief that most people haven't actually read it, and know it only from bowdlerised abridgements,... Format: Paperback - Released: 06/11/2008 Lovereading Price: £5.24 - Saving £1.75 (25%)

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Other Tales of Terror Robert Louis Stevenson The ultimate story of good versus evil although the twist being both these elements are fighting it out within one man. A wonderful novella that many have never read, thinking they know the story from film adaptations, but Stevenson's language... Format: Paperback - Released: 27/02/2003 Lovereading Price: £4.49 - Saving £1.50 (25%)