Robert Louis Stevenson: The Sick Boy Who Lit the Lamps | Biography for Sleep

Robert Louis Stevenson biography for sleep: the calm, true story of a sickly boy from Edinburgh who spent whole winters in bed, and grew up to write Treasure Island, Kidnapped and A Child's Garden of Verses. As a child, Louis lay awake through long winter nights, coughing, while his nurse Cummy carried him to the window to look at the lit windows across the dark garden. Years later, unable to speak and with his right arm in a sling, he went on writing poems for children with his left hand in a darkened room. And on a rainy summer afternoon in the Scottish Highlands, he drew the map of an island for his young stepson. Tonight we follow him slowly: the lighthouse family of Edinburgh, the lamplighter Leerie, a donkey called Modestine, a hard journey across the ocean, the map of Treasure Island, the snow of Davos and Saranac Lake, the islands of the Pacific, and his last home at Vailima in Samoa, where the people called him Tusitala, the teller of tales, and built him the Road of the Loving Heart. A slow, gentle bedtime story for adults. No loud music, no sudden sounds. Let the lights go low and drift off whenever you like. Illustrated with historical photographs, with some scenes recreated as artwork. CHAPTERS 0:00:00 Tonight: Robert Louis Stevenson 0:03:49 Chapter 1: A family of lights 0:08:32 Chapter 2: The long nights 0:14:18 Chapter 3: The land of counterpane 0:19:25 Chapter 4: Leerie 0:23:50 Chapter 5: The engineer's son 0:27:46 Chapter 6: The road south 0:32:54 Chapter 7: A donkey called Modestine 0:36:07 Chapter 8: Across the ocean 0:40:06 Chapter 9: A mountain and the snow 0:43:34 Chapter 10: A rainy summer and a map 0:48:37 Chapter 11: The sea cook goes out into the world 0:51:51 Chapter 12: In the dark, with his left hand 0:58:11 Chapter 13: Skerryvore 1:02:23 Chapter 14: Goodbye to his father 1:05:38 Chapter 15: Beyond the sunset 1:09:15 Chapter 16: Vailima 1:14:27 Chapter 17: The Road of the Loving Heart 1:19:28 Chapter 18: The last day 1:28:56 Chapter 19: Under the wide and starry sky Historical photographs, portraits and engravings: Wikimedia Commons (public domain). Other scenes recreated as artwork. SOURCES Graham Balfour, The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson (1901) Robert Louis Stevenson, My First Book: Treasure Island (essay, 1894) Robert Louis Stevenson, A Child's Garden of Verses (1885); Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes (1879); An Inland Voyage (1878); The Silverado Squatters (1883); Memories and Portraits (1887) Laura Stubbs, Stevenson's Shrine: The Record of a Pilgrimage (1903) The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson, ed. Sidney Colvin #RobertLouisStevenson #BiographyForSleep #SleepStory