Robert Louis Stevenson is the creator of Treasure Island and numerous other children's' adventure stories. These essays - from the heart and soul - concern themselves with Stevenson's philosophical musings on youth, growing, marriage, ageing, friendship and other deeply personal relationships.
Virginibus Puerisque was originally published in 1881. In 1887, while Stevenson was extremely ill, he had to return to Edinburgh from the south to be at the deathbed of his father. In August of that year he sailed with his wife, mother and stepson to New York. He was never to set foot in England again.
"In Lay Morals he gives forth the law to teachers and parents, and in Virginibus Puerisque to married persons and those looking forward to the married estate, with a quite professional confidence, and with certain old-world and sermonesque air"
"Stevenson, in his dedication to Virginibus Puerisque, confesses that though he clung to earlier self, time was so much for him, and his work showed signs of advancing edge."
The Faith of Robert Louis Stevenson John Kelman
