Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes and Other Travel Writings

Temperament and poor health motivated Robert Louis Stevenson to travel widely throughout his short life, and before he was celebrated as the author of Treasure Island, A Child's Garden of Verses, and other immortal works, he was known for his travelogues. This collection presents some of his finest writing in that vein, starting with "An Inland Voyage." This 1878 chronicle of a canoe journey through Belgium and France charmingly captures the European villages and townspeople of a bygone era.
Other selections include "Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes," a humorous account of a mountain trek, and "Forest Notes," a meditation on nature based on visits to the Forest of Fontainebleau near Paris and adjacent artists' colonies. These early writings offer captivating insights into Stevenson's bohemian nature and the wanderlust that sent him from his native Scotland to journeys around the world.

Novelist and poet Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) began his career as an essayist and travel writer, starting with the 1878 publication of An Inland Voyage and Edinburgh: Picturesque Notes. The author of captivating tales for readers of all ages, his classics include Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.