Half a capital and half a country town the whole city leads a double existence; it has long trances of the one and flashes of the other; like the king of the Black Isles it is half alive and half a monumental marble. ―Robert Louis Stevenson Edinburgh: Picturesque Notes This edition of Edinburgh: Picturesque Notes (1878) by Robert Louis Stevenson is a travel book by one of the city s native sons. Edinburgh was Robert Louis Stevenson s birthplace; he lived there on and off for the first 29 years of his life and continued to visit until 1887 when he and his wife left Europe. His book offers his personal impressions of each part of the city some of the history behind each and its most famous buildings. This replica of the 1889 edition is enhanced by 27 original drawings of some of these structures.