Robert Louis Stevenson And His Journey to Monterey

There are lots of opinions about Fanny Osbourne, with whom Robert Louis Stevenson fell in love in France in 1876. But Stevenson didn't equivocate. He traveled 6,000 miles to propose marriage to her. Both images are from Historic Bay Area Visionaries, set to be published by History Press in October.

Last week I began the true tale of the writer Robert Louis Stevenson's romance with a woman from California, Fanny Osbourne, whom he met in France in 1876. It was a complicated liaison: she was eleven years older than he and had been married for twenty years to someone else. Adding to the difficulties: he lived in Scotland and she lived 6,000 miles away in California. 

Robert Louis Stevenson on a Train Through Santa Clara Valley

Robert Louis Stevenson in his favorite blue velvet jacket, which is now in the Robert Louis Stevenson Museum in Monterey, along with his traveling desk, which is also in the photo. 

Photo courtesy of the California Historical Society and Historic Bay Area Visionaries.

Robert Louis Stevenson made an important visit to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1879. He was not yet the famous writer he would become and he was not on a literary errand. He was besotted with a California woman and determined to marry her.