I grew up in Philadelphia, did undergraduate studies at Amherst College and University of Edinburgh (Scottish literature), and Ph.D. at Rutgers University. Settled in England in 1980, and taught literature for 30 years for the University of Maryland’s European Division. I was raised secular Jewish, but thanks to G. K. Chesterton and my studies in medieval literature, I moved to Christianity, and was baptised at age 27 into the Episcopal Church.

My religious life has centred on the Contemplative tradition, starting first with Thomas Keating and Bede Griffiths, and moving outward from there in many directions, including a Sufi community where I participate in several reading groups and have given talks on spiritual writers.

My work has chiefly been with my namesake Robert Louis Stevenson and with Dante. My book on the Inferno has just been published; two more will follow, on the Purgatorio and the Paradiso. Since 2008 I have produced a radio show, Evening under Lamplight, for Cambridge Radio, which often promotes spiritual ideas though without being explicitly religious. My Evening under Lamplight Podcasts (on Substack) has presented 52 episodes on Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”, a series on Thoreau, a series on Stevenson’s Fables, several series on Shakespeare plays, and 102 episodes on Dante’s Divine Comedy. I have also given talks on the Scottish poet Edwin Muir, on Charles Williams, and T. S. Eliot.

I am a Reiki Master, with interests in all forms of spiritual healing, and Chinese medicine.