Stevenson was interested in the Samoaas
and took an active part in their political affairs. The tropical
climate agreed with him and his creative power was renewed. He wrote a
number of short stories, a series of letters on the South Seas, and
the novel _David Balfour_.
Political reverses and failing strength took away for a time his power
to write. He was again stimulated, however, by the love and
appreciation of his Samoan followers, and started on what promised to
be his period of highest achievement. This promise was soon blighted
by his untimely death from a stroke of apoplexy, December 13, 1894. He
was buried in Samoa.
BIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES
_Life of Robert Louis Stevenson_, 2 vols., Graham Balfour.
_Robert Louis Stevenson_, Isobel Strong.
_Memories and Portraits_, Robert Louis Stevenson.
_Friends on the Shelf_, Bradford Torrey.
"Personal Recollections," Edmund Gosse, _Century Magazine_, 50:447.
"Character Sketch," _Atlantic Monthly_, 89:89-99.
"The Real Stevenson," _Atlantic Monthly_, 85:702-5.
_A Bibliography of the Works of Robert Louis Stevenson_, W.F.
Prideaux.
CRITICISMS
Fundamentally Stevenson's style is marked by a conscious aim to
entertain. His engaging humor, free of all affectation,
sentimentality, and exaggeration, is spontaneous and natural. His most
original writing is _The Child's Garden of Verses_.
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