Dead Man's Chest

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"Dead Man's Chest" (also known as Fifteen Men On A Dead Man's Chest or Derelict) is a fictional sailor's work song or "sea shanty" from Robert Louis Stevenson's novel Treasure Island (1883), and a later expanded poem by Young E. Allison (1891). It has since been used in many later works of art in various forms.

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[edit] Background

Stevenson found the name "Dead Man's Chest" in a book by Charles Kingsley. Stevenson said "Treasure Island came out of Kingsley's At Last: A Christmas in the West Indies (1871); where I got the 'Dead Man's Chest' - that was the seed".[1][2]

In Treasure Island the full song is not reported. The chorus is given as:

"Fifteen men on the dead man's chest--

...Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!
Drink and the devil had done for the rest--
...Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!"

The book mentions one other phrase of the song, near its end: "But one man of her crew alive, What put to sea with seventy-five."

[edit] In the arts

[edit] Derelict

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

"Derelict" was a composition by Young E. Allison in 1891, nine years after Treasure Island was published. It is based on Stevenson's 4-line genesis from Treasure Island. "Derelict" is also variously known as Dead Man's Chest, Yo Ho Ho and Fifteen Men On A Dead Man's Chest. It has been so often imitated and derived from that it is often mistaken to be the original song from Treasure Island.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ David Cordingly. Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates. ISBN 0679425608.
  2. ^ Robert Louis Stevenson. "To Sidney Colvin. Late May 1884", in Selected Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson. Page 263.

[edit] Books

[edit] External links

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