Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) was a Scottish novelist, essayist, poet, and travel writer best known for Treasure Island, Kidnapped, Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and A Child’s Garden of Verses. Britannica confirms his Edinburgh birth, Vailima death on December 3, 1894, major works, and lifelong poor health and respiratory illness. The National Endowment for the Humanities describes his chronic lung ailment from childhood, including breathing problems and blood-spitting symptoms typical of tuberculosis, and notes his repeated travel in search of healthier climates. Samoa Global News confirms the Samoa death and Mount Vaea burial tradition. His worth was velocity under constraint: from a body that often failed him, Stevenson made some of literature’s most durable engines — the pirate map, the divided self, the fugitive road, the island horizon, and the lantern of adventure carried into dark rooms.