After the death of his father in 1887, Stevenson and his family sailed to America, where they settled in the Adirondacks for the winter of 1888. Here his health was good and he wrote a number of essays for _Scribner's Magazine_. In the spring of the same year they started on a cruise of the south seas. They visited many of the southern islands and settled at Vailima, Samoa. Stevenson was interested in the Samoaas and took an active part in their political affairs. The tropical climate agreed with him and his creative power was renewed. He wrote a number of short stories, a series of letters on the South Seas, and the novel _David Balfour_. Political reverses and failing strength took away for a time his power to write. He was again stimulated, however, by the love and appreciation of his Samoan followers, and started on what promised to be his period of highest achievement. This promise was soon blighted by his untimely death from a stroke of apoplexy, December 13, 1894. He was buried in Samoa. BIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES _Life of Robert Louis Stevenson_, 2 vols., Graham Balfour. _Robert Louis Stevenson_, Isobel Strong. _Memories and Portraits_, Robert Louis Stevenson. _Friends on the Shelf_, Bradford Torrey. "Personal Recollections," Edmund Gosse, _Century Magazine_, 50:447. "Character Sketch," _Atlantic Monthly_, 89:89-99. "The Real Stevenson," _Atlantic Monthly_, 85:702-5. _A Bibliography of the Works of Robert Louis Stevenson_, W.F. Prideaux. CRITICISMS Fundamentally Stevenson's style is marked by a conscious aim to entertain. His engaging humor, free of all affectation, sentimentality, and exaggeration, is spontaneous and natural. His most original writing is _The Child's Garden of Verses_. His touch is light and his thought is clear and lucid. _Across the Plains_ is written in his most straightforward and natural style. Stevenson was a careful writer, doing with great skill any established piece of art. He practised diligently, and gained, as he himself states, his high rank by constantly drilling himself in the art of writing. This imitation of form to the point of perfection, rather than an expression of a great and moving idea, gives an air of insincerity to some of Stevenson's works. Yet, although seemingly artificial, he never chose words for the sake of mere sounds, but for their accuracy in truth and fitness. He was as an ephemeral shadow with an optimistic and real spirit. He infused an intimacy and spirituality into his writings that prove delightful to all his readers.