Olalla (Penguin Little Black Classics) - Softcover

Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions.

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894). Stevenson's works available in Penguin Classics are An Apology for Idlers, The Black Arrow, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, In the South Seas, Kidnapped, The Master of Ballantrae, Treasure Island and Selected Poems.

Robert Lewis (later: "Louis") Balfour Stevenson was born in Edinburgh on 13 November 1850. His father Thomas belonged to a family of engineers who had built many of the deep-sea lighthouses around the rocky coast of Scotland. His mother, Margaret Isabella Balfour, came from a family of lawyers and church ministers. In 1857 the family moved to 17 Heriot Row, a solid respectable house in Edinburgh’s New Town. At the age of seventeen he enrolled at Edinburgh University to study engineering, with the aim - his father hoped - of following him in the family firm. However, he abandoned this course of studies and made the compromise of studying law. He "passed advocate" in 1875 but did not practice since by now he knew he wanted to be a writer. In the university’s summer vacations he went to France to be in the company of other young artists, both writers and painters. His first published work was an essay called "Roads", and his first published volumes were works of travel writing.