wandering after peace and health which latterly
brought him to "Vailima" by the shore of that "ultimate island where now
rest the remains of the beloved "Tusitala."

The "Amateur Emigrant" did not at once meet with the success it deserved
in the American literary arena, though no one will deny but that praise
was afterward showered upon the author's work to the full. Eight months
were spent in the immediate vicinity of the Golden Gate when he succumbed
to a severe illness which proved a serious draft on his powers.

In 1880, Stevenson, then in his thirty-first year, was married to Mrs.
Osbourne, an American lady whom he had known in France, and with his
step-son Lloyd Osbourne and Mrs. Stevenson took up his abode in an
abandoned mining camp at Juan Silverado, situated in the mountains of the
Coast range. The life here can be no more pleasantly referred to than by
recalling the record which was given to the public in "Silverado
Squatters." The family remained at Silverado through the summer from
whence they all journeyed to the old home in North Britain. For his
health's sake, Stevenson, accompanied by his household, then betook
himself to the dry and invigorating atmosphere of Davos Platz in the high
Alps; and here amid the sunshine and the clear air the family settled for
a winter's stay; and here it was that Stevenson, in conjunction with his
step-son, concocted those ingenious and unique booklets known to
collectors as the "Davos Platz Brochures." They had set up a small press
and derived much pleasure in designing and printing these little books;
"Black Canyon," "Not I," and "Moral Emblems," all of which are now of such
extreme rarity as to be almost unobtainable in their original state.

In 1881 was begun the actual labor of writing "Treasure Island," the germ
of which had been lying dormant in Stevenson's brain since his early
schoolboy days. After another visit to Scotland, Stevenson set his
footsteps still further to the southward and domiciled himself with his
family at the Chalet la Solitude, near Hyeres near Marseilles, on the
shores of the Mediterranean. Meanwhile, "Treasure Island" was running its
course serially in the _Young Folks Paper_, and when it appeared as a
volume pointed the definite way of Stevenson's popularity, the book being
in every sense his first popular success.

Realizing that his malady grew no better in the southland Stevenson
settled at Bournemouth, a mild winter resort on the south