The Wrong Box: A Life of Robert Louis Stevenson Quiz

Answer: Edinburgh

The family business on his father's side was lighthouse engineering, with all of the men in the three generations of the Stevenson family preceding Robert Louis having gone into that trade. His father was the great Robert Stevenson, engineer of the Bell Rock Lighthouse in the North Sea (the world's oldest sea-washed lighthouse and one of the Seven Wonders of the Industrial World).

It was perhaps due to his ill health as a child, or the fact that he spent a lot of time with his maternal grandfather (his mother's side of the family were members of the Scottish gentry - far from being engineers) that Stevenson did not follow in his father's footsteps.

Answer: Speculative Society

The Speculative Society at Edinburgh University was founded in 1764 and regularly hosts secretive dinners as well as debates and public speakers. Previous members include the author Sir Walter Scott and the mathematician John Playfair. It has recently come under criticism for not having admitted a single woman to the society in its 250-year history, with the rules being changed in 2014.

The other three answers are notorious clubs from other universities. The Bullingdon Club is an all-male dining club at the University of Oxford; previous members include David Cameron, George Osborne and Boris Johnson. If you want an insight into the supposed debauchery of the Bullingdon Club check out the 2014 film 'The Riot Club'. The Wyverns are a drinking club at the University of Cambridge and the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity at Arizona State was branded the 'most out-of-control fraternity in America' by 'Rolling Stone' magazine in 2013.

Answer: Telpherage

Having met Jenkin through the Speculative Society, Stevenson went on to take part in amateur dramatics at the Jenkin household, and developed a great respect for the man both as a professor and as a friend. An immensely personal biography, 'Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin' was published shortly after his death in 1885. Jenkin's influence on Stevenson can be seen as he ends the memoir 'two years have passed since Fleeming was bid to rest beside his father, his mother, and his uncle John, and the thought and the look of our friend still haunts us'.

The telpherage was a type of electrically run cable car, invented by Jenkin in 1882. He expected it to be a great success but unfortunately died before the first public line could be opened. Despite his work on the telpherage, Jenkin is not usually credited as the inventor of the cable car thanks to the work of Andrew Smith Hallidie in San Francisco some 10 years earlier. The first steam locomotive was made Richard Trevithick, the hot air ballon by the Montgolfier brothers and the electric G-Wiz by the Indian car company REVA.

Answer: No

While his parents were unhappy with his choice, it must have seemed somewhat inevitable given his behaviour at university. They made a compromise that he would study law as a backup should his work as an author prove fruitless. He qualified for the Scottish bar in 1875.

Stevenson fell out with his parents in 1873 after his father discovered the constitution of a club of which he was a member. The opening statement of the constitution was "Disregard everything our parents have taught us", prompting his father to later declare "You have rendered my whole life a failure". This argument caused an extended rift between Stevenson and his father.

Answer: Long John Silver

Stevenson first met Henley at the Edinburgh Infirmary in 1875, where he was being treated for tuberculosis of the bone. He had already lost one leg in 1868 and was being treated by the antiseptic pioneer Joseph Lister in order to keep the other. Henley described his first impressions of Stevenson in his poem 'Apparition' - "The brown eyes radiant with vivacity, there shines a brilliant and romantic grace".

They soon became good friends, collaborating on many plays throughout the 1870s and 1880s. Henley even secured the publication of 'Treasure Island' in 1883, his fatherlike figure mirrored in that of Long John Silver.

They remained friends until the late 1880s, falling out in 1888 partly as a result of Henley's disdain for Stevenson's wife and partly because Stevenson did not wish to continue their collaboration.

Henley outlived Stevenson, but was eventually defeated by his long struggle with tuberculosis in 1903.

Answer: France and Belgium

Stevenson loved to travel, and writing about your travels was a fantastic way to fund them. He frequently travelled across Europe with fellow Speculative Society alumnus Sir Walter Simpson, both to experience the culture and to try to improve his failing health.

Whilst on the canoe voyage that inspired 'An Inland Voyage' Stevenson met the married American 'Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne' and subsequently wrote the essay 'On Falling in Love', inspired by the experience of their meeting. They soon became lovers and after Stevenson pursued Van de Grift back to the United States in 1879/80 (a treacherous journey, documented in 'The Amateur Emigrant') they were married. Stevenson wrote several other travelogues in his career, including 'Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes' and 'The Silverado Squatters'.

Answer: Poole

Mr Poole is the faithful butler in 'The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde', showing his loyalty by not discussing his master's work. However, he eventually cracks, informing Dr Jekyll's good friend Utterson that he believes Jekyll to have been killed by Hyde and thus prompting a join investigation.

Despite his illness during this period of his life, it was arguably Stevenson's most productive. Whilst moving around he managed to produce 'Treasure Island', 'Kidnapped' and 'The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde', as well as his most famous collection of poetry 'A Child's Garden of Verses'. Poole is the second largest town in Dorset after Bournemouth.

Answer: Adirondack Mountains

Despite only staying at Saranac Lake for six months, it was another productive time for Stevenson. He wrote many articles, began serialising 'The Black Arrow' and wrote a large portion of 'The Master of Ballantrae'. Fanny went to California to pursue her own literary career (the aforementioned subject of Henley's contempt) while Stevenson spent time in New York before they reconvened for their greatest journey yet in June 1888.

The Adirondacks are sometimes classed as a subrange of the Appalachians, though they are in fact geologically distinct. The Cascades are found in the Northwestern United States and British Columbia and contain both Mt St. Helens and Mt Rainer. The Swan Range is found further east in Montana, while the Ozarks are primarily in Missouri and Arkansas.

Answer: Hawai'i

David Kalakaua was the penultimate monarch of the Hawaiian kingdom, succeeded by his sister Liliʻuokalani after his death in 1891. Stevenson was to spend the rest of his life in the South Pacific, rarely resting in one place for too long. He visited Australia and New Zealand in addition to many of the smaller island nations, eventually buying a plot of land in Samoa in 1890. He was present for large periods of the Samoan Civil War, lending his support to the vanquished Mata'afa against the German-backed King Laupepa. Stevenson took the native Samoan name 'Tusitala', aptly meaning "teller of tales".

Stevenson took much inspiration from his travels, writing ballads and short stories based on the myths and legends of the cultures he visited. He also began collaborating with his stepson Lloyd Osbourne during this time, writing the three novels 'The Wrecker', 'The Ebb-Tide' and the title work of this quiz, 'The Wrong Box'.

Answer: Requiem

This is the full poem:

Under the wide and starry sky
Dig the grave and let me lie:
Gladly did I live, and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you 'grave for me:
Here he lies where he long'd to be;
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.