Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) was a Scottish novelist, essayist and travel writer. Chronically ill for most of his life, he travelled in search of a climate that suited him and wrote Treasure Island (1883), Kidnapped and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde in little over a decade. He spent his last years in Samoa, where he died at forty-four, and his reputation has since moved from popular entertainer to serious stylist.