A Wilder Shore: The Romantic Odyssey of Fanny and Robert Louis Stevenson

by Camille Peri

A portrait of the fascinating, unusual and fruitful creative partnership between Fanny and Robert Louis Stevenson

The romance between Fanny and Robert Louis Stevenson was an unlikely Victorian love he was an ambitious but drifting college-educated writer from a prominent family in Scotland; she was a forceful and determined farm girl from Indiana with a high school education. She was married, with children, and 10 years his senior when they met in France in 1876. How could a union between them work?

A Wilder Shore is a portrait of these two extraordinary people and a nuanced examination of the improbable union that stimulated, frustrated and ultimately sustained them. The book travels the world with the couple as they seek better health for him, a looser lifestyle and more creative freedom, beginning in an art colony outside Paris and ending in Samoa, where they lived and joined the native islanders’ fight for independence from imperialist powers. Along the way, the ferment of the Stevensons’ deeply loving but stormy marriage produced literary masterpieces by Robert such as Treasure Island, Kidnapped and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

This sweeping love story of Fanny and Robert Louis Stevenson and their search for freedom and self-discovery opens up new perspectives on both writers, as well as showing how astonishingly modern they were for their times.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, History, Travel, Audiobook, Biography Memoir, Memoir

480 pages, Hardcover

First published August 13, 2024

Reviews

[Lorna · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Wilder Shore: The Romantic Odyssey of Fanny and Robert Louis Stevenson was an adventurous dual biography of this Bohemian couple that explored not only the world of literature but the world on their many sojourns, made in part, on a quest to better the health of Stevenson. The major novels of Robert Louis Stevenson, including Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, owe much to the care and influence of his wife, Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne. They first met at an artist colony in France when he was twenty-five and Fanny, ten years older with her children had fled to France, soon to be separated from her personable but philandering husband.

“The quest for freedom and self-discovery that Fanny and Louis had each started alone had led them to each other, and now they needed each other to see it through.”

“I stood there on the extreme shore of the West,” ‘The Wreckers’ Loudon Dodd says as he looks out from the Cliff House over the vast reach of the Pacific. One day Louis and Fanny would leave the West behind and sail for those wilder shores.”

The South Seas opened up a whole new life for Fanny and Louis as the ocean breezes tasted of freedom from which there was no turning back. Touring the Pacific turned out to be better for Louis than he and Fanny had dared to hope. By the end of their second tour, the Stevensons were so enamored with the Pacific Islands that they decided to settle permanently in Samoa in the late 1800s.

At the conclusion of the book, the author Camille Peri, concludes that without Fanny, there would be no Robert Louis Stevenson as we know him. She further states that toward the end of his life, Louis publicly recognized his essential literary collaboration with his wife. And Peri’s poignant words as follows:

“The stories of Fanny and Robert Louis Stevenson are impossible to separate. The couple is forever frozen together in time like the entangled lovers in the Rodin statue that they carried with them around the world. Fanny once said that her husband taught her how to live. She made his life and art possible. In their manifold imperfections, Fanny and Louis were perfect for each other.”

[Brendan (History Nerds United) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'll get right to the point. In A Wilder Shore by Camille Peri, the author commits three historical writing sins as defined by me. Please focus on the "as defined by me" part. If you read the sins below and decide they are not a big deal, then you may very well find A Wilder Shore enjoyable. The book is about author Robert Louis Stevenson (RLS) and his wife, Fanny. If you don't know who RLS is, then your childhood was robbed from you.

The first sin is understandable to an extent. Peri explains in her intro that Fanny has gotten a bad rap because of her sex and the time she lived in. Peri wants to take another look at her without the sexist lens. This is a wonderful plan! I fully support this! Unfortunately, Peri goes too far the other way. Instead of resurrecting Fanny through analysis and presenting her to the reader as a complex being, Peri excuses nearly all of Fanny's actions. For instance, Peri at one point praises Fanny's writing and then explains away the racist parts as probably the fault of the editors. Which leads me to sin #2.

Supposition. Remember way back when (two sentences ago) where Peri suggests the racist undertones were probably the fault of the editors? Well, this is not a one time thing. Peri repeatedly says things like, "Fanny must have felt," and then projected those feelings onto Fanny or whoever the subject is. Once again, like sin #1, this is not great, but if it is a once or twice occurrence then it can be forgiven. It is not rare in this narrative.

Finally, deadly sin #3. Modern vernacular. Did you ever expect to read a book where RLS is described as letting his freak flag fly? I didn't either, but here we are. Yes, there are many books which make this there motif of using modern words to tell a historical story as a fun anachronism. Peri isn't doing that here. These words and terms are not part of the theme, but merely strange divergences.

Thanks for letting me vent. Ultimately, this was a frustrating read for me (you may have noticed!). The story of the Stevensons is interesting and perhaps without these issues I could have enjoyed it more. Peri did good research in places and her attempt to reframe the relationship between these two people is admirable. The sins just doomed this one for me.

(This book was provided as an advance copy by Netgalley and Viking Books.)

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first biography of an author I ever read was Robert Louis Stevenson by G. B. Stern, published when I was two years old. I found it on the book shelf of my elementary school classroom. I loved reading about RLS and his colorful life.

I was already a fan of RLS’s A Child Garden of Verses. Later I read Kidnapped and even later still The Strange Case of Mr Jekyll and Dr. Hyde. I bought The Black Arrow for our son who told me he relished the tale. I read The Lighthouse Stevensons by Bella Bathurst. And I have a collection of A Child’s Garden of Verses editions, including the Tasha Tudor illustrated volume I bought for our son; as a preschooler he had memorized “Windy Nights”; I heard him reciting it to himself.

I was excited to revisit RLS’s life after over sixty years. I was enraptured by A Wilder Shore, setting aside all other reads, unwilling to let anything intrude in my transport into the lives of Stevenson and his wife Fanny. They were remarkable people, individualistic, strong in mind and spirit, even if RLS was continually ill and Fanny often exhausted and struggling with her own health issues. They lived life on their terms.

Fanny had married young. She followed her husband to a silver mine, delving into the primitive life of privation with a vengeance, building furniture and taking up odd jobs to provide an income. Sam Osborne was incapable of being faithful, or providing for his family. Fanny took their daughter to France to study art together. It was at a gathering of artists in Paris, Fanny smoking a cigarette, when RLS first saw her. Their eyes met. He was in love. With a married woman, nearly a decade older.

Fanny returned to her husband in San Francisco to try to repair their marriage, but soon discovered that Osborne had a second family, better provided for. Meantime, RLS was despondent, and in spite of his poor health, traversed the Atlantic and the entirety of America to be with Fanny. She had to nurse him back to health; it became the story of their relationship, Fanny nursing Robert. But she also was the catalyst that made his writing possible; without Fanny, Robert may never have completed a novel.

Osborn and Fanny divorced; Fanny and Robert married. They traveled from place to place, seeking a climate that eased Robert’s cough and hemorrhaging. They made friends among the world of artists and writers. Henry James was one.

When they ended up in the South Seas, they found a place that suited them well. Robert felt better. They could live the free bohemian life, hippies before there were hippies. They were passionate in their arguments and passionate about each other.

In his time, RLS was famous, a best selling writer, esteemed for his writing style. Then, he was stereotyped into a children’s writer, his essays and nonfiction forgotten. And yet, Hilary Mantel reads Kidnapped every year and credit it as the inspiration for her becoming an author. It is time to revisit Stevenson’s books.

[Jolanta (knygupė) · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5*

Populiariai ir pagauliai aprašytos Fanny ir Robert Louis Stevenson biografijos.

Anot autorės - jie tobulai tiko vienas kitam ir jų istorijų tikrai neįmanoma atskirti.

Beje, nepaisant visokiausių nuomonių apie dešimtmečiu vyresnę žmoną (tikrą feministę), jos "laukiškumą" ir kitas "nuodemes", be jos stiprybės slaugant vyrą ir tikėjimo jo talentu, mes neturėtume nei "Lobių salos", nei kitų paskui sekusių jo istorijų.

Kupina tikrų nuotykių knyga. Rekomenduoju.

[The Library Lady · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the most popular current adult fiction genres is fiction that isn't really fiction, but is based on real people. And most of it is dreadful, seldom truly bringing its subjects to life though it reads easily. On the other hand adult biographies can be no better-- thoroughly researched but stodgily written.

So here, oh joy of joys, is a well researched dual biography of Robert Louis Stevenson and his wife Fanny Van der Grift Osborne, and it reads as well as any fictionalized biography that's out there right now.

In fact, I'm surprised that no one has written a novel starring Fanny. From a mid-western girlhood to the silver mines of Nevada, to San Francisco and then to Europe and to a marriage to a sickly man ten years her junior and their adventures in both life and literature, Fanny is larger than life.

I have never been much of a Stevenson fan--I love Dickens and Austen, but I read Treasure Island long ago and it didn't appeal to me. But having read this book, I am adding it to my "to read" list this year.

Brava, Camille Peri!

[Robert Sheard · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve long admired Robert Louis Stevenson’s works, but The Wilder Shore by Camille Peri offered an entirely new perspective—one focused on his unconventional marriage to Fanny Osbourne. This biography delves into their adventurous, often tumultuous life together, from their travels across the Pacific to Fanny’s fierce role as Stevenson’s protector and editor. While the book is rich in detail and paints a vivid portrait of their partnership, at times, I wished for a sharper narrative focus. Still, it’s an engaging read that adds depth to Stevenson’s literary legacy, revealing how deeply his life and work were shaped by love, illness, and wanderlust. Fans of literary history and biographies will find plenty to appreciate here.

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this joint biography quite intriguing. Fanny and RLS were an unlikely couple. She was older than he, mired in an unhappy marriage with three children and he was a sickly struggling author whose family had other plans for him. The book chronicles how they found each other, married, and supported each other's ambitions. Stevenson wrote all his great works while suffering from terrible TB and in many ways in was Fanny who made this possible.

[Annie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I keep wavering between 4 stars and 5. So it must be 5. I so enjoyed this book.

[Pam · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read another book about RLS but this one was more detailed! It is amazing they all lived as long as they did as they were so much into drugs. Of course they were not as knowledgeable as they are today. He was definitely into writing. Interesting how he met Mark Twain.

[Denise Kruse · Rating 4 out of 5]

An easily digestible account of the lives of Robert Louis Stevenson and his wife Fanny Van der Grift. I love their Bay Area connections and their Bohemian lifestyles. Very much enjoyed reading!

[Carrie-Grace · Rating 4 out of 5]

Earlier this year, I discovered this biography in a little Minnesotan bookstore and fell in love with the beautiful cover. I grew up on several of Stevenson's books, but knew nothing about him as a person. He has such an interesting life story, and his marriage with Fanny is fascinating in its unconventional nature. Some of their life will cause raised eyebrows among modern readers, especially due to Fanny being 10 years older than Louis and separated from her husband when they met. After their marriage, Louis became the provider for her two children, although he never had children of his own. They were also unconventional in their thinking and ahead of their time in other issues, especially racial equality and gender roles.

Louis and Fanny lived an incredibly difficult life together--Louis suffered from debilitating illness and Fanny became his caregiver for most of their marriage. They survived largely on his father's money, and the couple travelled extensively to find better climates for Louis's health. In his later years, they travelled through the Pacific Islands. When they visited Hawaii, they became friends with the king of Hawaii, David Kalakaua and visited the leper colony on Molokai. They eventually settled in Samoa, where they built a home and established a life together until Louis died at age 44.

Louis had a wide variety of friends throughout his life, and I found the literary connections fascinating. His character Long John Silver is based on William Henley, author of Invictus. He and Fanny were friends with Percy Shelley, son of Mary Shelley of Frankenstein fame. As a baby, Fanny was baptized by Henry Ward Beecher, brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe. Abigail May Alcott, illustrator of her sister's first edition of Little Women, helped get Fanny's daughter oriented at a Parisian art school they both attended. There were many other connections I've since forgotten.

This is my first biography on Louis, so I don't have anything to compare it to, but I enjoyed it very much. The writing is very readable and engaging, and I'd recommend it as an introduction to his life and marriage.

[Yasmina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Van de Grift were an unconventional Victorian couple who lived their lives to the fullest. Their love story and marriage was scandalous at the time. She was 10 years older than him and married when they met in France. Eventually she obtained a divorce and married Stevenson which led to a different set of problems. Stevenson was a sickly man who was constantly moving to different places in hopes of finding a cure, there never was enough money, and there were constant squabbles with family and friends. Always in search of an adventure, the couple end up in Samoa fighting for Samoan independence. Thoroughly detailing their lives, Peri gives us plenty of information. I especially enjoyed the first section on Fanny’s life before Stevenson. She was a woman who had many opportunities and setbacks, but continued to move forward no matter what.

[MaryJo Hansen · Rating 4 out of 5]

One book and two biographies---of Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Van De Grift who became his wife when she was 40 and he was 26. They lived in the late 1800s and were the original hippies, blowing off Victorian traditions, traveling around the world and building a life in Samoa, always trying to live off the land and trying to fight the injustices of the day. He was a prolific writer and became famous after writing Dr. Jekyll l and Mister Hyde. But he was sickly his whole life (some form of lung disease) and would die at only 44. She was from California, the wife of a silver miner with 3 children. To get away from her philandering husband, she and the children went to Paris where she studied painting. She met Louis at an artists colony in 1876. And they were true soul mates from then on.
The author has done primary research on both their lives and the book has detailed accounts of their letters and their writings. It was fascinating to learn about their modern lives, lived more than a century ago.

[Maryann Jorissen · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was interesting to learn details of the life of RLS. For instance, I did not realize he was an invalid most of his life. But there is so much more to this talented man. This bio seems to juxtapose his wife in his writings and her vital role in being his inspiration.
I did enjoy learning details, but I had to give it a rating of three stars because it could be quite dry at times.

[Tami · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is way too long, but I really enjoyed the story of how they met, lived and loved. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever read a book of his, but his wife is enthralling. And so much life lived in a short period of time!

[Diane Goodman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating story of the lives of two people I had little knowledge of. Fanny Stevenson’s extraordinary life and adventures particularly interesting. A bit of a slog which reduced my rating.

[Min · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting book. It’s clear that there have been a lot of assumptions based on writings and available information. Which is fine for me. Though o saw others found issue with this. I think the author did a good job making it clear when she was bringing in her own certain biases. Or at least noting that we cannot know but it could be, X.

Unfortunately, I listened to this book and found the narrator’s constant switching in and out of a Scottish and English accents highly irritating. I don’t know why she made that choice. It’s a very bad imitation of a Scottish accent (think Mike Meyer’s So I Married an Axe Murderer). I would not recommend listening to this book. But it was otherwise excellent.

[Lisa Francesca · Rating 5 out of 5]

The story of two really fascinating people, told at a galloping pace. I ended up deeply sympathetic to both of them.

[Martha McSweeney Brower · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved this. Now I'm hooked on Treasure Island!

[Sally · Rating 5 out of 5]

Biography. An unconventional but creative literary marriage during Victorian times. Relationship is chronicled along side the backdrop of social, cultural and historical events in Britain, US, France and the Pacific Islands during that period.

[Nathan Robinson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good story. Narration ruined the story

[Janet · Rating 2 out of 5]

I can only rate the book I read, on audiobook. I am certain if I had read this book, rather than listened, I would have rated it much higher (4*?)

The subject matter was fascinating. Robert Louis Stevenson, lowland Scot, marries Fanny, an American divorcee with 2 children who is more than 10 years older than he is. They travel across the world from San Francisco to Scotland and England, France, and finally Samoa. Stevenson suffered from great lung illnesses throughout his life and only lived as long as he did because of his wife's care. And in 44 years he wrote some of the best of Victorian literature. The book describes their adventures, their literary successes (Fanny was a writer, too.), their devotion to each other, their health and mental issues. An interesting, compelling story filled with real adventure.

However, I cannot recommend the audiobook. The reader read all of Stevenson's attributed quotes in stagey Scots, which was often difficult to catch because she dropped her voice to imitate a man and was thus unsuccessful. She gave all the Scottish people the same accent and so it never sounded genuine. Also, English, American, and French people were given "appropriate" accents, unsuccessfully. It was distracting and often hard to make out what was being said. Her Liverpool accent,
while quoting John Lennon, was terrible.

I have listened to other nonfiction audiobooks that did not suffer from the same issue. The Wager was read in a very compelling, exciting way without mimicking anyone.

I was greatly disappointed. But I aim to reread Stevenson when I get the chance. I suppose the book was successful on that level, at least.

[Audrey Evans · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three and A Half Stars. I am a stingy star giver, so giving 3 and a half stars does not mean I think the book was mediocre. Nothing about Fanny and Robert Louis Stevenson could be mediocre. They might be two of the most interesting people to have ever lived, Fanny more interesting than her husband. I simply felt that the book’s narrative was not what it would have been in the hands of a 5 star author. The author’s research was thorough. But despite the detailed descriptions of Fanny and RLS - all the places they moved, all that they suffered, and all the challenges they faced…..at the end of the book, I felt like I knew a great deal about them, but that I didn’t know them.

I read the book not out of curiosity, but because the reviews were so good. The book was not all that was promised, but it was really good. I enjoyed reading it; I’m happy I read it. I recommend it to you.

[Lynn Rasor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating lives led by RLS, but especially by his wife, Fanny. Thankful for medical advances.

[Socraticgadfly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good, maybe 4.5 stars, but couldn't quite go 5. Scratch that. This is social media, and this is another review where I'm tweaking mine because I don't like someone else's overreaction.

Would Robert Louis Stevenson, who normally went by Louis, have lived to write all the great works he did without marrying Fanny Osbourne, who interested him enough he waited for her to divorce her first husband, when in late Victorian times, divorce was becoming less and less acceptable? Would Louis have had the stick-to-it-ness to see through his earlier novels?

Camille Peri's new dual biography says the answer is likely no to both issues, as well as strongly asserting how much of a collaborator, muse and editorial critic she was at times as well.

Peri also notes how, in his time, the later Stevenson, of his years of South Seas wanderings, was evolving in new literary directions, for which he was little appreciated in Britain and not necessarily a lot more in America. It makes me want to pick up something from his later works, if I can find something or ILL it, to give it a shot.

Especially on the Stevensons' later South Seas years, she notes how both of them were relatively, but not totally, enlightened on the Samoans and other islanders versus the racism of the time, and throughout the book, how Louis was relatively enlightened on the sexism, but how neither was perfect.

And, the real love story and Peri's main thesis is spelled out well vs the background of both of their families and that late-Victorian milieu.

On the reasons I couldn't quite go 5, they're related to a 3-star reviewer (though I think their review doth protest too much, perhaps a lot too much; see first paragraph).

Peri always assumes the best about Fanny as writer and person, and tries to modernize both Fanny and Louis too much. (The 3-starrer ONLY mentioned Fanny in regard to this.) Also, the person says that if don't know who Stevenson is, your childhood was robbed, and thus THEY commit the crime of seemingly straitjacketing him to being a children's author.

The other reason, which that reviewer doesn't even mention, that this book is not "really" a full 5 stars is that, not having read any of Fanny Stevenson myself, I can't assess Peri's claims about her authorial chops.

[George Otte · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a double biography, the story not just of Robert Louis Stevenson, author of Treasure Island and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but of his American wife, Fanny. And we start with her, maybe to correct an imbalance of attention, maybe because, being older, she had a running start on life before he was born. They are both impressive characters, resisting convention, cultivating eccentricity, devoted to each other. She was a beauty and a force of nature; he was a great wit as well as a great writer, cultivated by other greats of his day as different from each other (and him) as Henry James and Oscar Wilde. Fanny was already a wife and mother when they met — moreover, a mother who had tragically lost one of her three children,. The American and the Scot met in France, at an artists’ colony, and fell in love quickly but married only eventually. Fanny was still married to and semi-supported by her philandering ne’er-do-well of a husband, and RLS had to wait for her, even pursue her across half the world before they were married (and after she was duly divorced). It wasn’t as if they settled down then. They led a peripatetic existence, eveR searching for healthier climes for the sickly Louis (as Fanny and most others called him), sometimes in the mountains, sometimes on coasts, at last in the islands of the Pacific. Despite long bouts of illness, RLS never stopped writing, producing his aforementioned masterpieces, regular gems of serialized non-fiction and opinion pieces, poetry (most famously his Child’s Garden of Verses), and not least of all political statements (which, like his later fiction, inveighed against colonialism). Peri follows a long line of biographers, reviewers, sometimes collaborators, and fellow writers in documenting RLS. This is a burden to work under, but also a treasure trove to mine, and she is especially good at noting the fans of Stevenson in our own time (as different as Stephen King and Hillary Mantel) as well as his own time (including Mark Twain and Joseph Conrad, whose Heart of Darkness apparently owes much to the late Stevenson work The Ebb Tide). If the book sometimes reads less like a straight narrative than an appraisal of appraisals, it is richer (and not just longer) for it.

[Patricia Burgess · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kirkus Review: Journalist Peri draws on considerable archival sources to create a perceptive portrait of the unlikely marriage of Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) and Fanny Osbourne (1840-1914). Stevenson, “a university-educated writer from a prominent family in Scotland,” had just passed the Scottish bar. Fanny grew up in Indiana, lived in a mining camp with her philandering husband and three children, and most recently had settled in San Francisco. Eager to escape a stultifying marriage, grieving the death of her eldest son, she took her remaining children to France, where she and her daughter planned to study art. There she met Stevenson, also eager to escape; he was intent on pursuing a writing career, much to his father’s disappointment. They were a study in contrasts: Stevenson, skinny, unkempt, sickly; Fanny, attractive and forthright, with a personality “as big as the American frontier, with a blend of female sensuality and masculine swagger.” They quickly fell in love. Peri recounts the couple’s peripatetic journeys. They visited with Stevenson’s family in Edinburgh and traveled to Davos, Switzerland, for tuberculosis treatment. In the English resort town Bournemouth, they kindled a friendship with Henry James, in town to care for his sister. They went to the U.S., where the author of Treasure Island, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Kidnapped was hailed as a celebrity, and to French Polynesia on the first leg of two years of travels. A chain smoker with many medical maladies, Stevenson died in Samoa. Fanny proved more than a caregiver for her invalid husband: “She was a sharp critic and observer, and had a colorful imagination, qualities that he valued and relied on,” Peri comments, noting that he left his writing at her bedside each night for her to critique. Although Osbourne’s work came after Stevenson’s health and writing, Peri's extensive exegeses of her stories judge them to “sit comfortably and creditably among those of other female magazine writers of her day.” A richly detailed chronicle of two eventful lives.

[Dianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a long, complicated story of two complicated people: Fanny and Louis (Robert Louis) Stevenson). Fanny, a girl from Indiana, first married a philanderer and had two children with him, though she ultimately left him. Louis was born into a privileged Scottish family, but was sickly throughout his childhood and had multiple illnesses that plagued him throughout his life.

They eventually met and fell in love in France in the late 1800s, but life didn't run smoothly for either of them. Louis wanted to write, but his powerful father pressured him to train as an engineer to join the family firm. Fanny struggled to raise her two children with a father-provider who was unreliable, rash and controlling.

Once Louis and Fanny found their way to each other after many circuitous misconnections, life was colorful, inventive, loving, sometimes contentious, and never easy. Louis's ever-increasing fame as he eventually wrote Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Kidnapped, A Child's Garden of Verses, and many other much-loved books, allowed them the freedom to move freely around the world, but life was always stressful due to lack of money and his severe illnesses.

This book traces their life together and their eventual settling in Samoa. They created a colorful, dynamic home there, had an eclectic circle of visitors from around the world, and were welcomed into a community they grew to love. Louis died there at the age of 44. Sadly, his writing friends around the world had begun to denigrate his books, believing that he hadn't lived up to his early promise, and spreading the opinion that he had become only a writer of books for children. Happily, the rest of the world came to appreciate the genius of his talent and the quality of his work.

An interesting read, though often frustrating because of the dramas created by poor choices each of them so often made throughout their lives, and Fanny's mercurial personality.

[Lesley Potts · Rating 2 out of 5]

Averaged out to two stars only because the subject matter was interesting enough for me to want to find out more. I have read Treasure Island but knew nothing about the author and his unconventional lifestyle. He and his wife, Fanny, are the cool couple you love to hate. They appear to be permanently destitute yet they sponge off various relatives and finance global travels to satisfy their artistic whims. I was prompted to look up photographs of these travels and found interesting group shots of the entire entourage, gone native. And the John Singer Sargent portrait was just as bizarre as described. So there's that.

I listened to the audiobook which was so awful that, for the first time ever, I speeded up the narration so that it would all be over with sooner. I suspect I would have enjoyed reading it more. Although, I think it could have been pruned down somewhat as it's just more of the same in different locations. There are precis of seemingly every single thing both subjects wrote.

But the really awful thing was the narration. The best part was that she didn't do the gruff male voice thing but she did accents for every single character that appears in the biography. So Stevenson has an exaggerated Scottish accent. Many characters have the kind of English accent Americans think English people have. Think Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins. I made a list of a handful of the characters : Mark Twain, Henry James, John Singer Sargent, Sir Artur Conan Doyle and, I kid you not, John Lennon, Zadie Smith and Hilary Mantel. It got to the point that, whenever a name was mentioned, I braced myself for another butchered accent. The listener has to endure partial sentences in character. Any opportunity, it seems, to speak in character. I would caution that, just because you think you can doesn't mean you should.

[Louise · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a dual biography of a most unusual couple who remarkably transcend the culture of the Victorian era.

He grew up well provided for in Scotland with an authoritarian father, who despite his son’s serious illnesses, bullied him for his creativity.

She grew up in Indiana and married young. Her husband’s gold fever took him to Nevada. She later followed with their 6 year old daughter traveling through Panama since the railroad had not yet connected the country.

An opportunity for her husband brought her/Fanny to San Francisco. No longer in poverty, she takes art lessons while her husband has affairs.

Fanny and the Scotsman/RL Stevenson find each other in an artist colony/retreat in France.

Fanny goes back to her husband in San Francisco. RLS, despite very poor health and little money, romantically and heroically, wends his way to San Francisco. In these Victorian times he proposes marriage to this married woman (now) with 2 kids. She says yes. To camouflage their romance they live apart while they (unsuccessfully) manage the backlash against the marriage. They marry and then honeymoon in an abandoned silver mine.

That is the beginning of a life of travel and art which Camile Peri traces through Scotland, NYC, France, Saranac Lake (NY) and the Pacific Islands.

In each of these places they settle, you see Fanny adapt. She makes furniture from materials in the environment. She cooks local plants and produce. She plants her own garden. She can sew for herself and others. She seems to be constantly entertaining through parties and hosting house guests.

Her most consuming work is nursing her very sick husband. She can be up all night while he hemorrhages. She administers drugs and lifts him as needed. She does this without, chucks, paper towels and sometimes without running water. He is constantly coughing up blood, she must be doing loads of wash.

Peri shows how RLS is way ahead of his time. His children’s books show kids as participants and not just observers. While he uses racial terms, now considered pejoratives, he has advanced perspectives on minorities. Some publishers edited out his text showing the dark side of colonialism or the abuse of the powerless without his permission.

There is a lot on the couple’s social set which includes writers, publishers and critics. A close and supportive friend was Henry James. There are cameos With Mark Twain,Oscar Wilde, Joseph Conrad and others.

Fanny is a published writer on her own and there is quite a bit on her role in RLS’s writing and why scholars disagree on its influence. Works by both Fanny and RLS are described and in some cases the plot analyses are quite long.

There is also a lot on the “acceptance” of Fanny. She is a divorcee. She was outspoken. She did not dress as others. The marriage was not conventional but given the times she, not he, was the one who suffered criticism for it.

Highlights for me were the beginning (Fanny’s early life) and the end (life in the Pacific Islands).

There are very good photos, although this reader would like more if only B & W reproductions. No maps. The Index did not work for the two times I went to it.

There are lots bios of RLS and I don’t know how this fits in. 9 years ago I read the very complete Myself and the Other Fellow: A Life of Robert Louis Stevenson and don’t remember it having much about Fanny. I presume many of the early works skip over her role, who, from Peri’s interpretation is central to not just his health but also his personal/family and creative life.