Robert Louis Stevenson devoted his life to his wife Fanny: he crossed continents in search of her; scandalized his family by marrying her; built a life in the Pacific with her; survived tuberculosis because of her; and was encouraged and inspired in his writing by her. An American woman eleven years his senior, she remains in her own right one of the most independent and free-spirited women of her generation. Robert Louis Stevenson was an unknown 25-year-old when he came across Fanny for the first time in the artists' colony of Barbizon near Paris. This biography paints a portrait of the woman behind the genius who led a fascinating existence before, during and after her marriage to Stevenson. From the silver-mining towns of Nevada to the cocoa plantations of Samoa, Fanny evinced courage and determination to survive and triumph over the odds.