Robert Louis Stevenson, from a photograph by Lloyd Osbourne

THE LIFE OF

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

FOR BOYS AND GIRLS

BY

JACQUELINE M. OVERTON

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1933

TO THE BOYS AT THE YORKVILLE LIBRARY
AND
TO ALL OTHER BOYS
WHO LOVE TO TRAMP AND CAMP AND SEEK ADVENTURE
I DEDICATE THIS BOOK
WITH THE HOPE OF MAKING THEM
BETTER FRIENDS WITH A MAN WHO ALSO
LOVED THESE THINGS

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

Robert Louis Stevenson
    From a photograph by Mr. Lloyd Osbourne

No. 8 Howard Place, Edinburgh, Stevenson's birthplace

Colinton Manse

Swanston Cottage

Edinburgh Castle

Skerryvore Cottage, Bournemouth

The Treasure Island map

Facsimile of letter sent to Cummy with "An Inland Voyage"

Bas-relief of Stevenson by Augustus Saint Gaudens

South Sea houses

The house at Vailima

A feast of chiefs

The tomb of Stevenson on Væa Mountain

THE LIFE OF

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

FOR BOYS AND GIRLS

"Write me as one who loves his fellowmen."
—HUNT.

CHAPTER I

THE LIGHTHOUSE BUILDERS

". . . For the sake
Of these, my kinsmen and my countrymen,
Who early and late in the windy ocean toiled
To plant a star for seamen."

The pirate, Ralph the Rover, so legend tells, while cruising off the coast of Scotland searching for booty or sport, sank the warning bell on one of the great rocks, to plague the good Abbot of Arbroath who had put it there. The following year the Rover returned and perished himself on the same rock.

In the life of one of Scotland's great men, Robert Louis Stevenson, we find proud record of his grandfather, Robert Stevenson, having built Bell Rock Lighthouse on this same spot years afterward.

No story of Robert Louis Stevenson's life would be complete that failed