Robert Louis Stevenson was born in Edinburgh in 1850. Chronically ill with bronchitis and possibly tuberculosis, Stevenson withdrew from engineering at Edinburgh University in favor of studying law. Although he passed the bar and became an advocate in 1875, he knew that his true work was as a writer. Between 1876 and his death in 1894, Stevenson wrote prolifically. His published dozens of essays, short stories, fiction, travel books, plays, letters, and poems. The most famous of his works include Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes (1879), New Arabian Nights (1882), Treasure Island (1883), The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1887), Thrawn Janet (1887) and Kidnapped (1893). Robert Louis Stevenson died in Valima in 1894 of a brain hemorrhage.
