Alison Cunningham
Courtesy of The Writers' Museum (The Edinburgh Museums Service)

"Lew came home from the English Church in a great way, because, he said, the minister was preaching against Presbyterianism. No wonder he was angry! 'What,' said Lew with some warmth, 'an English clergyman preaching against a Church for which our forefathers have bled and died! How dare he!' So dear Lew did not go back to the church in the afternoon."

(Alison Cunningham, Cummy's Diary: A Diary Kept by R.L. Stevenson's Nurse Alison Cunningham While Travelling with Him on the Continent during 1863 (London: Chatto & Windus, 1926), p. 87)

Alison Cunningham, “Cummy” (1822-1913), was RLS’s nurse. Born in Torryburn, Fife, Cummy was a strict Calvinist. She became RLS’s nurse in 1852, remaining in the household until November 1872. She was deeply devoted and loyal to the Stevensons and loved RLS.

Cummy’s religious views had a strong influence on the young Stevenson: “if Louis spent, as he tells us, 'a Covenanting childhood', it was to Cummie that this was due. Besides the Bible and the Shorter Catechism, which he had also from his mother, Cummie filled him with a love of her own favourite authors, McCheyne and others, Presbyterians of the straitest doctrine. [. . .] In matters of conduct, Cummy was for no half-measures. Cards were the Devil’s Books. [. . .] The novel and the playhouse were alike anathema to her; and this would seem no very likely opening for the career of one who was to be a novelist and write plays as well. For her pupil entered fully into the spirit of her ordinances, and insisted on a most rigorous observance of her code” (Graham Balfour, The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson [London: Elibron, 2005], pp. 30-31).

"I am sick to death of the matter and the notion of any quarrel has made me feel quite ill. It is of course very unfortunate that my story was written first and read by people and if they express their astonishment it is a natural consequence and no fault of mine or any one else. I assume that you know me sufficiently to be sure that I have never alluded to the matter even to friends who have spoken of 'The Nixie'. I trust this matter is not making you feel as ill as all of us. Yours affectionately,
Katherine De Mattos"

Katharine Elizabeth Alan Stevenson de Mattos (1851-1939) was RLS’s cousin and Bob Stevenson’s sister. She was born to Alan Stevenson and Margaret Scott Jones. She married William Sydney de Mattos (b. 1851) and the couple had two surviving children. Katharine became an author, writing under the pseudonym of Theodor Hertz-Garten.

Samuel Lloyd Osbourne
Courtesy of The Writers' Museum (The Edinburgh Museums Service)

"I had grown to love Luly Stevenson, as I called him; he used to read the 'Pilgrim's Progress' and the 'Tales of a Grandfather' to me, and tell me stories 'out of his head'; he gave me a sense of protection and warmth, and though I was far too shy ever to have said it aloud, he seemed so much like Greatheart in the book that this was my secret name for him"

Samuel Lloyd Osbourne (1868-1947), known as Lloyd, was RLS’s step-son. He was born in San Francisco to Samuel and Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne.

Lloyd went with his mother and sister Belle to Europe when they were pursuing their art studies. In 1876 when they went to Grez, the family met RLS.

After the marriage of his mother and RLS, Lloyd accompanied the Stevensons on many of their travels, settling with them at Vailima. He and his sister Belle wrote about RLS and their experiences in Samoa in Memories of Vailima (1902). Lloyd also wrote about RLS in An Intimate Portrait of Robert Louis Stevenson (1924).

During a rainy holiday in Scotland when Lloyd was twelve, he and RLS drew a map, which inspired Stevenson to write Treasure Island (1883). He dedicated the novel to his stepson. Lloyd and RLS collaborated on The Wrong Box (1889), The Wrecker (1892) and The Ebb-Tide (1894), although critics have debated on the extent and importance of Lloyd’s contributions.

Bob Stevenson (centre) Courtesy of RLS Collection, General
Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and
Manuscript Library, Yale University

"what was our dismay, in the midst of quite a crowd of the gay world, to see that open cab, at a word of command from Robert Louis, draw near the pavement as we approached, when two battered straw hats were lifted to us with quite a Parisian grace. Both [Bob and Louis] wore sailor hats with brilliant ribbon bands, both were attired in flannel cricketing jackets with broad bright stripes, and round Louis's neck was knotted a huge yellow silk handkerchief, while over both of their heads one of them held an open umbrella. [. . . ] such an apparition in the open cab required more courage to face than perople accustomed to the present-day use of tennis garb can easily imagine. [. . . ] And when we described that startling vision that was slowly creeping along Princes Street in the open cab, [Mrs Stevenson] laughed till her tears fell"

Robert (Bob) Alan Mowbray Stevenson (1847-1900) was Stevenson’s cousin and lifelong friend. He was born in Edinburgh to Alan Stevenson and Margaret Scott Jones.

An aspiring artist, Bob studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Antwerp in 1873. During the 1870s, he became part of the communities of artists working in Fontainebleau and Barbizon. RLS often visited him, and it was Bob who first met Fanny and Belle Osbourne (who he admired).

In 1881, Bob married Harriet Luisa Purland and the couple had a son in 1894. Unfortunately, Bob had little success as a painter, but gained a strong reputation as an art critic.

Fanny Stevenson
Courtesy of RLS Collection, General
Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and
Manuscript Library, Yale University

"I wandered away from Louis, gathering shells, but was recalled by a wild shout. I found Louis bending over a piece of the outer reed that he had broken off. From the face of both fractures innumerable worms were hanging like a sort of dreadful, thick fringe. The worms looked exactly like slender earthworms, more or less bleached, though some were quite earthworm colour. They lengthened out and contracted again until I felt quite sick and had to fly from the sight. Afterward, Louis broke other pieces of rock; one kind always contained worms; another kind, lighter in colour and firmer in texture, contained much fewer worms, also empty holes in the process of closing up; still others were close and hard and white, like marble. I got a good many shells, and after a fruitless search for some other way across the island than round the inland lagoon, I gave it up and we retraced our footsteps; that is, for a certain time, when we became lost, or as Louis indignantly put it: 'Not lost at all; we only could not find our way'"

Frances (Fanny) Matilda Van de Grift Osbourne (1840-1914) was RLS’s wife. She was born in Indianapolis to Jacob Vandegrift and Esther Thomas Keen.

Margaret Stevenson
Courtesy of The Writers' Museum (The Edinburgh Museums Service)

"Place of Birth: 8 Howard Place, Edinburgh.
Time of Birth: Wednesday, 13th November, 1850 at 1:30 p.m.
Color of Eyes: Blue at first turning to hazel.
Color of Hair: Very fair almost none at first.
Nurse's name: Mrs Sayers.
Doctor's name: Dr Malcolm
Surname: Stevenson
Christian Names: Robert Louis Balfour
Pet Names: Boulihasker, Smoutie, Baron Broadnose, Signor Sprucki, otherwise, Maister Sprook and many others, but Smoutie stuck to him until he was about 15"

Margaret Isabella Balfour Stevenson (1829-1897) was RLS’s mother. She was 1 of 13 children born to the Reverend Lewis Balfour, the minister of Colinton, and Henrietta Scott Smith. RLS often visited Colinton (which is near to Edinburgh) as a child.

Thomas Stevenson
Courtesy of The Writers' Museum (The Edinburgh Museums Service)

"The book has the same fault as the Inland Voyage for there are some three or four irreverent uses of the name of God which offend me and must offend many others. They might have been omitted without the slightest damage to the interest or the merit of the book. So much for your absurdity in not letting me see your proof sheets. The only other fault in the book is, I think, a superfluity in the way of description of scenery. Had there been a great variety of scenery the objection would not have been justifiable but when the scenery is so generally the same I think some of it might have been spared. On the whole however I think it is a very successful volume of travel and I believe that your two volumes are unique in point of style"

Thomas Stevenson (1818-1887) was RLS’s father. Thomas followed in his father Robert Stevenson’s (1772-1850) footsteps, becoming a lighthouse engineer in the family firm. He designed more than thirty lighthouses.

Thomas was a Scottish Calvinist, and a firm believer in the importance of the Christian faith. He married Margaret Isabella Balfour in 1848, and two years later, RLS was born.

Belle Strong in 1944

"Louis and I have been writing, working away every morning like steam-engines on Hermiston [. . . ]. 'Belle,' he said, 'I see it all so clearly! The story unfolds itself before me to the last detail - there is nothing left in doubt. I never felt so before in anything I ever wrote. It will be my best work; I feel myself so sure in every word!'"

"She is my wife's daught, my secretary, my emanuensis, my woman-Friday on my desert island, my finder of things, my last assistance, my oasis, my staff of hope, my grove of peace, my anchor, my haven in a storm. She's Belle, I suppose"

Isobel (Belle) Osbourne (1858-1953) was RLS’s step-daughter. She was born in Indianapolis to Samuel and Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne.

Both Belle and her mother were interested in art and became art students in Paris. In 1876 Belle, her brother Samuel (Lloyd) Osbourne and Fanny went to an art colony in Grez, France, where Fanny met RLS.

Belle married the artist Joseph Strong (1853-1899) in 1879 and gave birth to a son, Austin Strong (1881-1952). In the 1880s, the Strongs lived first in San Francisco (where they helped give a memorable studio party for Oscar Wilde in the spring of 1882). and Joe Strong came up to stay with the Stevenson party in Silverado and Calistoga where he drew pictures of the miners' cabin and proved "a most good-natured comrade and a capital hand at an omelette". In 1882 they went to Hawaii. The Stevensons met up with them there when the Casco arrived in Honolulu in January 1890. Joe Strong had a drink problem was not an ideal husband; trying to help, RLS took him on the Equator cruise as photographer (July-Deccmber 1889, ending in Samoa) and sent Belle and Austin to Sydney with a small allowance. Belle later joined Stevenson at Vailima in May 1891, where she became his valued "amanuensis" or secretary. She and her brother Lloyd wrote about RLS and their experiences in Samoa in Memories of Vailima (1902).