Robert Louis Stevenson was born in Edinburgh on 13th November 1850 into a well-respected family of lighthouse and harbour engineers. His early years were marked by illness and his solitary existence provided opportunities to engage his precocious imagination on adventures in which he could escape the restraints of ill health.
It was expected that Stevenson would enter the family business as a graduate engineer and he briefly studied engineering at the University of Edinburgh. He abandoned engineering for law, however, and was called to the Scottish Bar as an Advocate in 1875. Stevenson never practised law and, much to his father's chagrin, he announced that he wished to be a writer. He was twenty-one years old when he began to write essays and travel tales and soon became well regarded as
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Citation: Massie, Eric. "Robert Louis Stevenson". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 11 December 2002 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5096, accessed 23 November 2024.]
