Early life Fanny Vandegrift was born in
Indianapolis, the daughter of builder Jacob Vandegrift and homemaker Esther Thomas Keen. Their daughter Isobel (or 'Belle') was born the following year. Samuel fought in the
American Civil War, went with a friend sick with
tuberculosis to
California, Stevenson wrote many of his most 'muscular' essays in Monterey while awaiting Fanny's decision. She ultimately chose Stevenson, divorced Osbourne, and in May 1880 she and Stevenson were married in San Francisco. A few days later, the couple left for a honeymoon in the
Napa Valley, where Stevenson produced his work
Silverado Squatters. He later wrote
The Amateur Emigrant in two parts about his passage to America:
From the Clyde to Sandy Hook and
Across the Plains. His middle-class friends were shocked by his travel with the lower classes; it was not published in full in his lifetime, and his father bought up most copies. In August 1880, the family moved to Great Britain, where Fanny helped to patch things up between Robert and his father. Always in search of a climate conducive to Stevenson's ailing health, the couple travelled to the
Adirondacks in the US. In 1888, Fanny Stevenson published a short story, "The Nixie", which
William Ernest Henley recognized as based on
Katharine de Mattos's idea they had discussed the previous year. He wrote to her husband: "Why there wasn't a double signature is what I've not been able to understand." This accusation of
plagiarism led to a bitter quarrel and rupture of the Stevensons with Henley and de Mattos. In 1888, the Stevensons chartered the
Casco out of San Francisco and sailed to
Western Samoa. Later voyages on the
Equator and
Janet Nicoll with Fanny's son Lloyd Osbourne followed. They settled in
Upolu, at their home
Vailima, where Stevenson died on 3 December 1894.
Return to California After Stevenson's death, Fanny returned to California to begin a new life in America and Europe with an adoring companion decades her junior, newsman
Edward "Ned" Salisbury Field. When Fanny died in
Santa Barbara, California, Field described her as "the only woman in the world worth dying for." Soon after, he married her daughter
Isobel Osbourne. In 1915, Fanny's ashes were taken by her daughter to
Samoa where they were interred next to Stevenson on top of
Mount Vaea.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EE29rkc7DM0C&q=Fanny+Stevenson+ashes+Mount+Vaea&pg=PA207 ==In popular culture==