He was a matchless imaginative writer, and A Child's Garden of Verses lead many of us to love poetry, and we enjoy introducing our children to the engaging verses that capture a child's opinion of the world. He was a versatile writer in fiction, essay, poetry and drama, believing that romance was a necessary element in life, and that fiction was as necessary to grown people as play to children. For Stevenson, the highest point of romance to him was fine conduct, springing from loyalty and a sense of duty. The literary world affectionately remembers Robert Louis Stevenson as a man who never grew up, and his verses reveal a child's attitudes. And tell the other girls and boys Not to meddle with my toys.
All sins are murder, even as all life is war.
I behold your race, like starving mariners on a raft, plucking crusts out of the hands of famine and feeding on each others' lives. Stevenson wrote well, but evil is a recurring theme. In his well-known books, he scrutinized the evil that lurks in some men's lives and hideously overflows in others. Yet, compared with many contemporary children's books that glorify the macabre, Robert Louis Stevenson's work is outstanding, and surveying his life can help us introduce his writing to our children. His protagonists are often children or ingenuous adults.