The author of "Treasure Island" literally suffered from tuberculosis from birth and even in adulthood spent most of his time in bed. However, one cannot judge about inferiority by his works … Perhaps, like his characters Jekyll and Hyde, the writer lived a double life, at night getting into a parallel world, where he was healthy and full of strength …
Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson was born on November 13, 1850 in Edinburgh, in the family of a hereditary engineer, specialist in lighthouses.
Even as a child, he began to have strange colorful dreams. Rather, the stories that puppet theater puppets played out in a dream. At first, the boy told his nanny about what he saw in a dream, and she wrote down his dreams in a notebook. When he grew up, he began to take notes himself. And sometimes what he saw came true in real life: relatives testify that Robert more than once predicted future events …
The young man entered first at the Edinburgh Academy, then at the Faculty of Law at the University of Edinburgh, from which he graduated in 1875. But his real vocation was literature. He wrote poetry, ballads, essays …
Despite his illness, Stevenson traveled extensively and even got married. But he could not get out of bed every day and even wrote not at the table, but right in bed on a special board …
Once Robert, along with his parents, wife Fanny and 14-year-old stepson Lloyd, went on vacation in the mountains near Bremer. The family hoped that the high altitude air would help relieve the symptoms of consumption … But the weather was chilly, Robert began to cough, and Lloyd became mocked … Then Stevenson came up with a story for him about a teenager who, having learned the secret of pirate treasures, went in search of them … In creating this saga, she took the whole family is involved. And young Lloyd was so delighted that he demanded that his stepfather immediately transfer all the vicissitudes of the hunt for the pirate treasure on paper.
The writer worked on Treasure Island from 1881 to 1882, and it was published in 1883. At first, he signed the book with the pseudonym John Nord - that was the name of the true captain of a pirate ship who lived in the 18th century.
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The royalties received for the book were small. But she made a real sensation among the readers. It turned out that there are many details in it that coincide with reality. So, a pirate schooner called "Hispaniola" really existed, and the names of several characters were similar to the names of real people …
There was a rumor that Stevenson was actually a pirate named Billy Bones, who tried to steal an old treasure from under the noses of his comrades, but, being exposed, fled to England, where he began to impersonate a writer … But most importantly, they assured that the map of the location of the treasures from the novel is also genuine and indicates a treasure buried either by the legendary pirate captain Kidd, or by Captain Flint …
In the course of a journalistic investigation, it turned out that in his youth, as a student at the University of Edinburgh, Stevenson, in his free time, wandered around brothels and brothels, and also smoked opium. The regulars of hot spots even gave him the nickname - Velvet Jacket.
Indeed, in those years, Robert wore a red velvet jacket and a red scarf, and also grew long hair. In addition, he almost married a prostitute from a port tavern to annoy his respectable father … The newspapermen also dug this story up and inflated it into a scandal …
It got to the point that even the writer's wife Fanny began to suspect that he had a "second life." She asked Robert to question him: maybe he actually has a dark past? He admitted that in his youth he really visited brothels - the atmosphere there was very conducive to literary inspiration. Stevenson took a notebook with him and wrote poetry … As for that "girl from the tavern" Kate Drummond, she, being from a village in Northern Scotland, told him the legends of the Scottish Highlanders, which shook the imagination of a novice writer … Well, and seriously marry he, of course, did not think about it …
In 1886, Stevenson's psychological story The Strange Story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was published. She brought him no less fame than "Treasure Island". It was with this book that all the literature of the twentieth century began, dedicated to the motive of a split personality …
Since 1890, the writer lived on the Samoan islands, the climate of which was supposed to contribute to his health. However, on December 3, 1894, Robert Stevenson died of a stroke on the island of Upolu. He was only 44 years old.
A number of modern researchers believe that Stevenson was a visionary, that is, he received information from some otherworldly sources, on the basis of which he wrote his books. Whether this was so, or the whole point is in his developed imagination, we will never know.
TRINITY MARGARITA