Silverado Squatters, The
by Robert Louis Stevenson
Category: California

Robert Louis Stevenson's unconventional 1880 honeymoon in an abandoned silver mining camp on the shoulder of Mount St. Helena provides the backdrop for this wonderful narrative of late 19th century California. "Squatting" for two months during a California summer with his new wife, Fanny Vandegrift, The Silverado Squatters provides readers with insight into life in the Napa Valley--with descriptions of the "experiments" with local wine growing, his visit to a petrified forest, his first use of the telephone, and the characters of the local people. Stevenson used his memories of this California honeymoon to create much of the descriptive detail found in 1883's Treasure Island.