This plaque is one of many in the pavement in front of Colton Hall. It reads:
"1879
Robert Louis Stevenson
In poor health, nearly penniless and with his literary
success still a few years away. Robert Louis
Stevenson created a romantic view of Monterey and
the surrounding area. His written and mental notes of
the Monterey coastline were later used when he wrote
'Treasure Island," 'Kidnapped" and
"The Old Pacific Capital."
Wikipedia (
visit link) informs us:
"Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson (13 November 1850 – 3 December 1894) was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer. His most famous works are Treasure Island, Kidnapped, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and A Child's Garden of Verses.
A literary celebrity during his lifetime, Stevenson now ranks among the 26 most translated authors in the world. His works have been admired by many other writers, including Jorge Luis Borges, Bertolt Brecht, Marcel Proust, Arthur Conan Doyle, Henry James, Cesare Pavese, Ernest Hemingway, Rudyard Kipling, Jack London, Vladimir Nabokov,[2] J. M. Barrie, and G. K. Chesterton, who said of him that he "seemed to pick the right word up on the point of his pen, like a man playing spillikins"....
Novels
Illustration from Kidnapped. Caption: "Hoseason turned upon him with a flash" (chapter VII, " I Go to Sea in the Brig "Covenant" of Dysart ")
The Hair Trunk or The Ideal Commonwealth (1877) Unfinished and unpublished.[96] An annotated edition of the original manuscript, edited and introduced by Roger G. Swearingen, was published as The Hair Trunk or The Ideal Commonwealth: An Extravaganza in August 2014.
Treasure Island (1883) His first major success, a tale of piracy, buried treasure, and adventure, has been filmed frequently. In an 1881 letter to W. E. Henley, he provided the earliest known title, "The Sea Cook, or Treasure Island: a Story for Boys".
Prince Otto (1885) Stevenson's third full-length narrative, an action romance set in the imaginary Germanic state of Grünewald.
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), a novella about a dual personality much depicted in plays and films, also influential in the growth of understanding of the subconscious mind through its treatment of a kind and intelligent physician who turns into a psychopathic monster after imbibing a drug intended to separate good from evil in a personality.
Kidnapped (1886) is a historical novel that tells of the boy David Balfour's pursuit of his inheritance and his alliance with Alan Breck Stewart in the intrigues of Jacobite troubles in Scotland.
The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses (1888) An historical adventure novel and romance set during the Wars of the Roses.
The Master of Ballantrae (1889), a masterful tale of revenge, set in Scotland, America, and India.
The Wrong Box (1889); co-written with Lloyd Osbourne. A comic novel of a tontine, also filmed (1966).
The Wrecker (1892); co-written with Lloyd Osbourne.
Catriona (1893), also known as David Balfour, is a sequel to Kidnapped, telling of Balfour's further adventures.
The Ebb-Tide (1894); co-written with Lloyd Osbourne.
Weir of Hermiston (1896). Unfinished at the time of Stevenson's death, considered to have promised great artistic growth.
St Ives: Being the Adventures of a French Prisoner in England (1897). Unfinished at the time of Stevenson's death, the novel was completed by Arthur Quiller-Couch."