Robert Louis Stevenson (redirected from Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson)

Stevenson, Robert Louis 

Born Nov. 13, 1850, in Edinburgh; died Dec. 3, 1894, on the island of Upolu, Samoa. British writer.

A Scot by origin, Stevenson was the son of an engineer. He graduated from the faculty of law of the University of Edinburgh in 1875. He traveled a great deal. Suffering from a serious form of tuberculosis, he settled in the Samoan Islands in 1890.

Stevenson’s first printed work was The Pentland Rising (1866). His classic adventure story Treasure Island (1883; Russian translation, 1886) brought him world renown. In the strongly plotted novels Kidnapped (1886; Russian translation, 1901), The Master of Ballantrae (1889; Russian translation, 1890), The Wrecker (1892; Russian translation, 1896), and Catriona (1893; Russian translation, 1901) the world of profiteering and greed is counter-posed to pure aspirations and high morality. The historical novels Prince Otto (1885; Russian translation, 1886) and The Black Arrow (1888; Russian translation, 1889) combine the romance of adventure with a precise re-creation of local color and historical circumstances.

Stevenson’s psychological novella The Strange Case of Dr. Je-kyll and Mr. Hyde (1886; Russian translation, 1888) is a classic working out of the theme of the “split personality” in English literature.

In Russia, Stevenson’s works were translated by K. Bal’mont, V. Briusov, I. Kashkin, and K. Chukovskii. Several screen versions of Treasure Island have been made in the USSR. The contemporary British writer R. Delderfield offers an original in-terpetation of Treasure Island in his novel The Adventures of Ben Gunn (1956; Russian translation, 1973).

WORKS

Collected Works, vols. 1–35. London, 1923–24.
In Russian translation:
Poln. sobr. romanov, povestei i rasskazov, vols. 1–20. St. Petersburg, 1913–14.
Sobr. soch., vols. 1–5. Moscow, 1967.

REFERENCES

Kashkin, I. “R. L. Stivenson.” In his book Dlia chitateliasovremennika. Moscow, 1968.
Urnov, M. V. Na rubezhe vekov. Moscow, 1970.
Oldington, R. Stivenson. Moscow, 1973.
Balfour, G. The Life of R. L. Stevenson, vols. 1–2. New York, 1901.
Eigner, E. M. R. L. Stevenson and Romantic Tradition. Princeton, N.J.,1966.
Kiely, R. R. L. Stevenson .... Cambridge, Mass., 1964.

E. IU. GENIEVA