Happy Birthday, Robert Louis Stevenson!
by Melanie J. Meyers, M.S., Senior Reference Librarian, Center for Jewish History

Robert Louis Stevenson was born yesterday in the year 1850 in Scotland. He was a prolific and popular author in his time, enjoying a great deal of success until he fell out of critical favor after World War II. In the latter part of the 20th century, his works were revisited by critics, and he has now been restored to favor within the mainstream literary establishment. Stevenson wrote 13 full-length novels and a wealth of short stories, many of which were later made into motion pictures.

Stevenson was a very well-traveled man. Over the course of his life, he traveled to most of Europe, the Pacific coast of the United States, the leper colonies of Hawaii, and Samoa, where he took up residence in his later life. Stevenson is buried there.

Though he was not a speaker of Yiddish, Stevenson’s books were translated into Yiddish and many other languages. We hold copies of select titles here at the Center, in the collections of both the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and the American Jewish Historical Society. Among the holdings are Yiddish translations of two of his most famous works, Doḳṭor Dzsheyḳel un Mr. Hayd (or The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) and Oytser Indzl (or Treasure Island).