The Silverado Squatters

by Robert Louis Stevenson

"The Silverado Squatters" by Robert Louis Stevenson is a travel memoir published in 1883. It recounts his unconventional 1880 honeymoon with Fanny Vandegrift in California's Napa Valley. Broke and recovering from illness, the couple squatted in an abandoned mining camp bunkhouse on Mount Saint Helena, enduring primitive conditions including rattlesnakes and hauling water by hand. Stevenson's observations capture late 19th-century California life, from experimental vineyards to petrified forests, while his detailed notes on the surrounding landscape later influenced "Treasure Island."