For some time, the Stevensons lived in Switzerland because of Robert's bad health, but still he continued to suffer from bouts of severe respiratory illness; he returned to the Scottish Highlands, but became critically ill with a lung hemorrhage. He tried living in England, but the climate there was also bad for him. All this time, however, he continued to write and publish. His best-known novels, Treasure Island and Kidnapped, are both products of this period, as is The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), more commonly referred to as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
In August 1887, Stevenson and his family sailed for America, where he found himself famous. Thus, he chartered a yacht and sailed for the South Seas. He lived there for the rest of his life, writing novels, essays, and poetry and traveling among the islands. In the South Seas (1896) and A Footnote to History (1892) are records of his fascination with the exotic new peoples and the countries he encountered.
Finally, when Stevenson was forty, he decided to make his home in Samoa, and he lived there, with his wife, his mother, and his wife's two children, for four years. He died very suddenly early in December 1894; surprisingly, his death was due to a cerebral hemorrhage and not to the long-feared tuberculosis which had plagued him so relentlessly throughout his life.
