December 18, 1894

Death of R. L. Stevenson

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

LONDON, Dec. 17.--A dispatch to The Star, dated Apia, Samoa, Dec. 8, confirms the report that Robert Louis Stevenson, the novelist, died suddenly a few days ago from apoplexy. His body was buried on the summit of Paa Mountain, 1,300 feet high.

The Westminster Gazette, in an article on the death of Robert Louis Stevenson, says that, although Mr. Stevenson was anything but apoplectic, there is little doubt that his untimely end was due to apoplexy, induced by the heat of the climate. He left a new novel half completed. The Gazette says the was among the most lovable of modern writers, and the news of his death will be heard with the keenest regret. Perhaps no author of recent years has enlisted so much personal interest on the part of his readers.

The Pall Mall Gazette says that in letters recently written Mr. Stevenson said he had two novels practically completed, but could not be induced to part with them until they had received finishing touches. One is entitled "The Chief Justice's Clerk," the plot of which was foreshadowed in "Catriona." Those who have read portions of this work regard it as his masterpiece. The other book, entitled "St. Ives," is the story of a French prisoner who made his escape from Edinburgh Castle and had stirring adventures in a romantic district of Scotland. Mr. Stevenson had many shorter tales sketched out. He loved Samoa better than any other place, except Scotland. His wife, interviewed recently, said: "We mean to live in Samoa always and leave our bones there."

Robert Louis Stevenson's full name was Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson, but the Balfour he had ceased to use. He was a native of Edinburgh, Scotland, and the date of his birth was Nov. 13, 1850. His father, Thomas Stevenson, had eminence in connection with lighthouses. For many years Thomas Stevenson was an Inspector of Lighthouses, and retained his activity in that office until near the time of his death, in 1888. On the English coast he was connected with the building of several houses; in the arrangement of reflectors he made important improvements, and some of his knowledge on the subject went into a book which he published on lighthouse optics. When he died his son wrote a sketch of his life, and one of his son's books was dedicated to him, "by whose devices the great sea lights in every quarter of the globe shine out more brightly."

Thomas Stevenson, like most Scotchmen, had dabbled in theology. In 1877 he brought out "Christianity Confirmed by Jewish and Heathen Testimony, and the Deductions from Physical Science." The work went into a second edition in the following year. Thomas Stevenson's devotion to lighthouses came to him by inheritance. His father was that Robert Stevenson who, between 1795 and 1840, designed no fewer than eighteen lighthouses for the Scotch coast, the chief of which was the famous one on Bell Rock, in which he improved on the one Smeaton had built at Edystone.

Of his Scotch origin Louis Stevenson was always proud. He has said in one of his books that to be born a Scotchman is "the happiest lot on earth." But it was a privilege one must pay for. "You have to learn," he said, "the paraphrases and the Shorter Catechism; you generally take to drink; your youth, so far as I can find out, is a time of louder war against society, of more outcry and tears and turmoil than if you were born, for instance, in England. But, somehow, life is warmer and closer, the hearth burns more redly, the lights of home shine softer on the rainy street, the very names endeared in verse and music cling nearer round our hearts."