Margaret Isabella Balfour Stevenson

Category

Museums & Galleries Item

Item no

21880

Title

Margaret Isabella Balfour Stevenson, Robert Louis Stevenson's mother

Description

Margaret Isabella Balfour Stevenson, Robert Louis Stevenson's mother, stands leaning against the back of a chair. She is looking to her right so that her face is in profile. Her hair is worn up with a lace cap on top. She is wearing a long skirt, an over jacket and a lace scarf. The Gothic style chair she is leaning on is upholstered with patterned material and has barley sugar twist carving down each side. A book lies on a table beside her.

Artist / maker

Unknown

Date

1879

Size

25.5 x 19.0 cm

Type

Photograph

Location

Writers' Museum

Margaret Stevenson (nee Balfour) was Robert Louis Stevenson's mother. She was born in 1829, the daughter of the Revd Lewis Balfour, minister of Colinton. She kept poor health in her early and middle life, suffering from chest problems. She married Thomas Stevenson, civil engineer, on 8th August 1848. They had one son, Robert Louis in 1850. After her husbands death in 1887 she lived for a while in Samoa with Robert and his family. She died in 1897.

Born in Edinburgh on 13th November 1850, Robert Louis Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, playwright and travel writer. Although he was plagued by ill health all his life, he was extraordinarily well-travelled, visiting Europe, America and the South Seas. He married American born Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne in 1880 and is best-known for works like Treasure Island (1883), Kidnapped and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (both 1886). From the late 1880s, Stevenson stayed in the South Pacific with his family on his own estate in Vailima in Samoa. He died here on the 3rd December 1894 of a brain haemorrhage at the age of 44, leaving what many consider his best work, Weir of Hermiston (1896) unfinished.

Exhibitions with this item

Other views of this item

Related images

Related subjects

Clothing and dress > Accessories > Hats

Clothing and dress > Accessories > Scarves

Clothing and dress > Garments > Dresses

Clothing and dress > Garments > Jacket

Furnishings > Furniture > Chairs

People > Adults > Women

Read how our collections have inspired people taking part in events, visits and community groups. Use the slider or navigation arrows to see more responses.