Publication Timeline of Stevenson’s Works

*With reference points from Stevenson’s life italicized in green.*

1866

The Pentland Rising (RLS’s first published essay)

1867 – Attended Edinburgh University as a civil engineering major.

1871 – Begins to study law.

1873

Roads (his first paid publication)

1875 –finished university; passed Scottish Bar; a year later meets Fanny Osbourne.

1878

An Inland Voyage (his first book);
Edinburgh: Picturesque Notes

1879

Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes

1880 – Married Fanny Osbourne in San Francisco, California;
honeymoons in Napa Valley for 9 weeks; then returns to Scotland.

1881

Virginibus Puerisque and Other Papers (published as a book);
Treasure Island (serialized in Young Folks magazine in 1881-1882)

1882

Familiar Studies of Men and Books;
New Arabian Nights;

1883

Treasure Island (first published as book);
Across the Plains (published in Longman’s Magazine);
The Black Arrow (published in Young Folks magazine);
Silverado Squatters (published in Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine)

1884

The Body Snatchers (published in Pall Mall magazine)

1885

A Child’s Garden of Verses;
Prince Otto;

1886

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde;
Kidnapped;

1887

The Merry Men and Other Tales and Fables;
Underwoods;
Memories and Portraits;

May 8th Thomas Stevenson dies;August 22nd Louis, Fanny, Lloyd and Margret Stevenson sail for New York and spend the winter at Saranac Lake.

1888

Memoir of Fleming Jenkin;
The Black Arrow: A Tale of Two Roses;

The family charters the schooner Casco and sails out of the
San Francisco Bay to the South Seas.

1889

The Master of Ballantrae: A Winter’s Tale;
The Wrong Box (in conjunction with step-son Lloyd Osbourne);

The Stevensons arrived in Hawaii and reunited with the Strong family;
his mother returns to Scotland while the rest continue on in the South Seas and Australia

1890

Ballads;
Father Damien: An Open Letter to the Reverend Doctor Hyde of Honolulu;

RLS purchases the Vailima Estate on the island of Upolu, Samoa.

1891

The South Seas (published in The Sun in New York);
The Bottle Imp (published in the New York Herald);

1892

The Beach of Falesà (published in the Illustrated London News);
The Wrecker (co-authored by Lloyd Osbourne);
A Footnote to History: Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa;
Across the Plains With Other Memories and Essays;

1893

Island Nights’ Entertainment;
Catriona (in the US it was published as David Balfour);

1894

The Ebb-Tide;

December 3 Stevenson suffers a cerebral hemorrhage and dies.

 

Posthumous Publications

1895

Amateur Emigrant;
Songs of Travel and other Verses;

1896

Weir of Hermiston (an unfinished novel);
In the South Seas;
Fables;
Lay Morals;

1897 – May 14, Margaret Stevenson dies in Edinburgh.

1897

St. Ives: Being The Adventures of a French Prisoner in England;

1914 – February 19, Fanny Stevenson dies in Santa Barbara, California.

1915 – June, Fanny buried with Stevenson on the summit of Mount Vaea, Samoa.