This selection gathers together the best-loved poems from A Child's Garden of Verses with many less well-known gems from Stevenson's work.

Robert Louis Stevenson was an atheist and free spirit. In Samoa - where he died - he fought in a civil war for independence. In 1886, the blockbuster novel Kidnapped was published - a dramatic adventure of abduction and life on the run in the wilds of Scotland. Stevenson died in 1894, just 44 years old. The Samoan natives, who were devoted to Stevenson, cut a track through the jungle to create a resting place for him on top of the mountain above his beloved Vailima estate.