Wood's biography covers the life of Robert Louis Stevenson from his birth in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1850 to his death in Samoa in 1894. Diagnosed with tuberculosis—a serious lung disease common in the nineteenth century— early in his childhood, Stevenson traveled a great deal throughout his life in search of healthy environments. As a young man he often visited Europe, especially France, and also traveled to the United States, spending time in both Monterey and San Francisco in 1879.

Stevenson married Fanny Osbourne in the U.S. in 1880 and returned with his wife to Europe, where they visited a famous hospital for tuberculars in Davos, Switzerland. The couple lived in Hyeres in southern France from 1882 to 1884, and in 1887 moved to Saranac, New York, the location of another famous hospital for tuberculars. Between 1888 and 1890 the Stevensons cruised the South Sea Islands, and in 1890 they settled in Samoa, Stevenson's final...