化身博士的奇案

Introduction Robert Louis Stevenson was born in Edinburgh in 1850. He was the only son of Thomas Stevenson, a successful engineer, and his wit~ Margaret Balfour, both of whom were very strictly religious. In his university yeals Stevenson gave up the religion of his parents, but the teaching he received as a child continued to influence him. He went to Edinburgh to study engineering, but soon discovered that he had no interest in the subject and studied law instead. While at university he decided, much to his father' s disappointment, that he wanted to be a writer. He tra(创举是什么意思？“创举”是一个汉语词汇，它主要的意思是指前所未有的、影响大的举动或事业。)velled widely after this, and wrote about his travels in France, Belgium and Calitbrnia. Stevenson suffered from poor health for most of his lif~, but this did not stop him from leading a life of travel and adventure. In 1876, in France, he met and fell in love with an American woman called Fanny Osbourne. As she was a married woman, Stevenson' s family were shocked by the relationship at first. In 1878 Stevenson went to California to be with her. Travelling by ship and train, he had many adventures on the journey, at one point coming very close to death. He arrived in California ill and with no money at all. Fanny Osbourne had by now left her husband and they were soon able to get married. The marriage pleased Stevenson' s family, who offered them some financial support, so Stevenson and Fanny returned to Scotland with Lloyd, the son of Fanny' s first husband. Soon after that they stayed for a time in Davos, Switzerland, because Stevenson was by now seriously ill with a lung disease. Over the next few years the family moved between France, Scotland and England, and in 1888 they sailed to the Pacific Islands, on what was originally planned as a short pleasure trip. In fact, though, Stevenson never returned to Europe. After months exploring the South Sea islands, he bought a house in Samoa where the weather was good for his health. He lived there and wrote happily until he died suddenly in 1894;...