 Unable to write, Stevenson dictated thirty chapters of the novel to his stepdaughter as a diversion from his debilitating illness.He alternated dictating "St. Ives" and "The Weir of Hermiston" but gradually lost interest in the former.The book plot concerns the adventures of the dashing Viscomte Anne de Keroual de St. Ives, a Napoleonic soldier enlisted as a private under the name Champdivers, after his capture by the British.