The Gypsy Life of Robert Louis Stevenson
hudsonreview.com
hudsonreview.com
Treasure Island - pure gold. Kidnapped - gold.
I recall in the introduction to one of them he explains he wrote these stories for boys. Adventure, danger, fun characters. If you have sons you'll know there is a certain aesthetic young boy love and these books deliver it.
I also was amazed how much I enjoyed his books for adults, like the one about being on a ship as a kid (can't find the name).
If you look into his biography you find some really hard things that I guess he transformed into writing.
Reminded me immediately of Montehomo, the Hawks Claw, chief of the ever-victorious.
> At night, when the boys had gone to bed, the girls crept to their bedroom door, and listened to what they were saying. Ah, what they discovered! The boys were planning to run away to America to dig for gold: they had everything ready for the journey, a pistol, two knives, biscuits, a burning glass to serve instead of matches, a compass, and four roubles in cash. They learned that the boys would have to walk some thousands of miles, and would have to fight tigers and savages on the road: then they would get gold and ivory, slay their enemies, become pirates, drink gin, and finally marry beautiful maidens, and make a plantation.
https://americanliterature.com/author/anton-chekhov/short-st...
(Stretching the meaning of "American" literature there, and not a great translation, just the first I found)
I had less luck with Kidnapped. Haven’t tried Treasure Island.