enson's first successful work was _Treasure Island_, which was
published in book form in 1883, and has already become a classic. This
did not, however, bring him either a good income or general fame. His
great reputation dates from the publication of the _Strange Case of
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,_ which appeared in 1886. That work had an
instant and unqualified success, especially in America, and made its
author's name known to the whole English-speaking world. _Kidnapped_
was published the same year, and another masterpiece, _The Master of
Ballantrae_, in 1889.

After various experiments with different climates, including that of
Switzerland, Stevenson sailed for America in August 1887. The winter
of 1887-88 he spent at Saranac Lake, under the care of Dr. Trudeau,
who became one of his best friends. In 1890 he settled at Samoa in the
Pacific. Here he entered upon a career of intense literary activity,
and yet found time to take an active part in the politics of the
island, and to give valuable assistance in internal improvements.

The end came suddenly, exactly as he would have wished it, and
precisely as he had unconsciously predicted in the last radiant,
triumphant sentences of his great essay, _Aes Triplex_. He had been at
work on a novel, _St. Ives_, one of his poorer efforts, and whose
composition grew steadily more and more distasteful, until he found
that he was actually writing against the grain. He threw this aside
impatiently, and with extraordinary energy and enthusiasm began a new
story, _Weir of Hermiston_, which would undoubtedly have been his
masterpiece, had he lived to complete it. In luminosity of style, in
nobleness of conception, in the almost infallible choice of words,
this astonishing fragment easily takes first place in Stevenson's
productions. At the end of a day spent in almost feverish dictation,
the third of December 1894, he suddenly fainted, and died without
regaining consciousness. "Death had not been suffered to take so much
as an illusion from his heart. In the hot-fit of life, a-tiptoe on the
highest point of being, he passed at a bound on to the other side. The
noise of the mallet and chisel was scarcely quenched, the trumpets
were hardly done blowing, when, trailing with him clouds of glory,
this happy-starred, full-blooded spirit shot into the spiritual land."

He was buried at the summit of a mountain, the body being carried on
the shoulders of faithful Samoans, who might have sun