Robert Louis Stevenson wrote Treasure Island for his stepson — drawing the map of the island, inventing the characters as he went. Long John Silver grew out of his friend Henley, a one-legged poet.
He was born in Edinburgh in 1850, tubercular from childhood. His father intended him for engineering; Stevenson chose law instead, and then literature. He travelled in search of a climate that would not kill him.
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) explored the double nature of man, good and evil housed in a single body. Kidnapped, Catriona and Prince Otto followed — adventure and historical novels.
His last years were spent on Samoa, where he was a chief and "Tusitala," the Teller of Tales. He died there in 1894 of a brain haemorrhage.