Stevenson, Robert Louis

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) was a Scottish novelist, poet, and essayist whose exploration of the darker corners of human nature produced one of the most enduring Gothic tales in English literature. Consumptive from youth, Stevenson traveled extensively in search of health, writing adventure stories, travel narratives, and fin-de-siècle horror from his homes in England, France, and eventually Samoa, where he became known as Tusitala, the storyteller. Jekyll and Hyde emerged from a fever dream in 1886 and immediately captivated Victorian readers with its disturbing portrait of respectable society harboring monstrous secrets.