Robert Louis Stevenson

Abstract For Symonds, Davos brought release, but for Stevenson, who spent the winters of 1880–82 in the resort, it was a form of imprisonment, made bearable only by the presence of Symonds. Stevenson’s Davos essays capture the oscillating emotions evoked by long-term illness, which become a form of prism for viewing the surrounding landscapes. The chapter explores the intensity of a friendship born of isolation and illness, its betrayal, and Stevenson’s onward move to the English health resort of Bournemouth, where Henry James replaces Symonds as his evening companion. James’ story ‘The Author of Beltraffio’ and Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde are read in the light of this triangular relationship, and the latter in relation to Stevenson’s experiences in Davos. In conclusion, the chapter follows the ever-mobile Stevenson to Saranac Lake, in New York State, where Dr. Trudeau, in this gloomier version of Davos, was importing the German and Swiss modes of tubercular cure.