Treasure Island

Treasure Island  

Cover illustration by Frank Godwin (1925).
Author Robert Louis Stevenson
Country Scotland
Language English
Genre(s) Adventure,
Young Adult Literature
Publisher Cassell & Company Ltd
Publication date 1883
Media type Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages 292 pp
ISBN NA

Treasure Island is an adventure novel by Robert Louis Stevenson, narrating a tale of "pirates and buried gold". First published as a book in 1883, it was originally serialised in the children's magazine Young Folks between 1881-82 under the title The Sea Cook, or Treasure Island.

Traditionally considered a coming of age story, it is an adventure tale known for its superb atmosphere, character and action, and also a wry commentary on the ambiguity of morality—as seen in Long John Silver—unusual for children's literature then and now. It is one of the most frequently dramatised of all novels. The influence of Treasure Island on popular perception of pirates is vast, including treasure maps with an 'X', schooners, the Black Spot, tropical islands, and one-legged seamen with parrots on their shoulders.

Contents

History

Stevenson was 30 years old when he started to write Treasure Island, and it would be his first success as a novelist. The first fifteen chapters were written at Braemar in the Scottish Highlands in 1881. It was a cold and rainy late-summer and Stevenson was with five family members on holiday in a cottage. Young Lloyd Osbourne, Stevenson's stepson, passed the rainy days painting with watercolours. Remembering the time, Lloyd wrote:

“ ... busy with a box of paints I happened to be tinting a map of an island I had drawn. Stevenson came in as I was finishing it, and with his affectionate interest in everything I was doing, leaned over my shoulder, and was soon elaborating the map and naming it. I shall never forget the thrill of Skeleton Island, Spyglass Hill, nor the heart-stirring climax of the three red crosses! And the greater climax still when he wrote down the words "Treasure Island" at the top right-hand corner! And he seemed to know so much about it too —— the pirates, the buried treasure, the man who had been marooned on the island ... . "Oh, for a story about it", I exclaimed, in a heaven of enchantment ... .[1] ”

Within three days of drawing the map for Lloyd, Stevenson had written the first three chapters, reading each aloud to his family who added suggestions. Lloyd insisted there be no women in the story which was largely held to with the exception of Jim Hawkins' mother at the beginning of the book. Stevenson's father took a child-like delight in the story and spent a day writing out the exact contents of Billy Bones's sea-chest, which Stevenson adopted word-for-word; and his father suggested the scene where Jim Hawkins hides in the apple barrel. Two weeks later a friend, Dr. Alexander Japp, brought the early chapters to the editor of Young Folks magazine who agreed to publish each chapter weekly. Stevenson wrote at the rate of a chapter a day for fifteen days straight, then ran dry of words. His health was a non-factor in this. He was near despondency, having never earned his keep by age thirty-one, and fearing he would not finish this book either. He turned to the proofs, corrected them, took morning walks alone, and read other novels.

As autumn came to Scotland, the Stevensons left their summer holiday retreat for London, and Stevenson was troubled with a life-long chronic bronchial condition. Concerned about a deadline they travelled in October to Davos, Switzerland where the break from work and clean mountain air did him wonders, and he was able to continue at the rate of a chapter a day and soon finished the storyline.

Map created by Robert Louis Stevenson.

During its initial run in Young Folks from October 1881 to January 1882, Treasure Island failed to attract any attention or even increase the sales of the magazine, but when sold as a book in 1883 it soon became very popular.[2] Prime Minister Gladstone was reported to have stayed up until two in the morning to finish it. Critics widely praised it. American novelist Henry James praised it as "..perfect as a well-played boys game".[3] Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote "I think Stevenson shows more genius in a page than Sir Walter Scott in a volume".

"The effect of Treasure Island on our perception of pirates cannot be overestimated. Stevenson linked pirates forever with maps, black schooners, tropical islands, and one-legged seamen with parrots on their shoulders. The treasure map with an X marking the location of the buried treasure is one of the most familiar pirate props",[4] yet it is entirely a fictional invention which owes its origin to Stevenson's original map. The term "Treasure Island" has passed into the language as a common phrase, and is often used as a title for games, rides, places, etc.

Thanks to Stevenson's letters and essays, we know a great deal about his sources and inspirations. The initial catalyst was the island map, which was essentially the whole plot to him as author, he said. He mailed the map with his manuscript to the book publisher and was later told the map had been lost. He had no copy and was devastated. In the days before copy machines, he had to construct another map tediously from scratch, making sure it matched the storyline this time. The new map lacked the charm of the first and was never really Treasure Island to Stevenson, though. He also drew from memories of works by Daniel Defoe, Edgar Allan Poe's "The Gold-Bug", and Washington Irving's "Wolfert Webber", of which Stevenson said, "It is my debt to Washington Irving that exercises my conscience, and justly so, for I believe plagiarism was rarely carried farther.. the whole inner spirit and a good deal of the material detail of my first chapters.. were the property of Washington Irving."[5] Stevenson says the novel At Last by Charles Kingsley was also a key inspiration. The idea for the character of Long John Silver was inspired by his real-life friend William Henley, a writer and editor, who had lost his lower leg to tuberculosis of the bone. Lloyd Osbourne described him as "..a great, glowing, massive-shouldered fellow with a big red beard and a crutch; jovial, astoundingly clever, and with a laugh that rolled like music; he had an unimaginable fire and vitality; he swept one off one's feet". In a letter to Henley after the publication of Treasure Island, Stevenson wrote "I will now make a confession. It was the sight of your maimed strength and masterfulness that begot Long John Silver...the idea of the maimed man [ed. Henley was crippled], ruling and dreaded by the sound [ed. voice alone], was entirely taken from you". Other books that resemble Treasure Island include Robert Michael Ballantyne's Coral Island (1871) and Captain Marryat's The Pirate (1836). H. Rider Haggard's King Solomon's Mines (1885), the first of the "Lost World" literary genre, was the product of a bet between Rider Haggard and his brother that he could write a better novel than Treasure Island.

Stevenson had never encountered any real pirates in his life: the "Golden Age of Piracy" had ended more than a century before he was born. However, his descriptions of sailing and seamen and sea life are very convincing. His father and grandfather were both lighthouse engineers and frequently voyaged around Scotland inspecting lighthouses, taking the young Robert along. Two years before writing Treasure Island he had crossed the Atlantic Ocean. So authentic were his descriptions that in 1890 William Butler Yeats told Stevenson that Treasure Island was the only book from which his seafaring grandfather had ever taken any pleasure.[6]

Critically, the novel can be seen as a bildungsroman, dealing, as it does, with the development and coming-of-age of its narrator, Jim Hawkins.

Stevenson was paid 34 pounds seven shillings and sixpence for the serialization and 100 pounds for the book.

Plot summary

Jim Hawkins meeting Ben Gunn
Jim Hawkins and the treasure of Treasure Island. In the background, the moored Hispaniola is incorrectly depicted as a brig; the text describes her as a schooner.

Captain Flint backstory

Treasure Island contains numerous references to fictional past events, gradually revealed throughout the story and yielding a backstory that sheds light upon the events of the main plot.

The bulk of this backstory concerns the pirate Captain J. Flint, "the bloodthirstiest buccaneer that ever lived", who never appears, being dead before the main story opens. Flint was captain of the Walrus, with a long career (possibly as much as 25 years), operating chiefly in the West Indies and the coasts of the southern American colonies. His crew included the following characters who also appear in the main story: Flint's first mate, William (Billy) Bones; his quartermaster John Silver; his gunner Israel Hands; and among his other sailors: Ben Gunn, George Merry, Tom Morgan, John Pew, "Black Dog" and Allardyce (who becomes Flint's "pointer" toward the treasure). Many other former members of Flint's crew were on the cruise of the Hispaniola, though it is not always possible to identify which were Flint's men and which later agreed to join the mutiny — such as the boatswain Job Anderson and a mutineer "John", killed at the rifled treasure cache.

Flint and his crew were successful, ruthless, feared ("the roughest crew afloat"), and rich, if they could keep their hands on the money they stole. The bulk of the treasure Flint made by his piracy—700,000 pounds' worth of gold, silver bars and a cache of armaments—was, however, buried on a remote Caribbean island. Flint brought the treasure ashore from the Walrus with six of his sailors, also building a stockade on the island for defence. When they had buried it, Flint returned to the Walrus alone—having murdered all of the other six. A map to the location of the treasure he kept to himself until his dying moments.

The whereabouts of Flint and his crew are obscure immediately thereafter, but they ended up in the town of Savannah, Province of Georgia. Flint was then ill, and his sickness was not helped by his immoderate consumption of rum. On his sickbed, he was remembered for singing the chantey "Fifteen Men" and ceaselessly calling for more rum, with his face turning blue. His last living words were "Darby M'Graw! Darby M'Graw!", and then, following some profanity, "Fetch aft the rum, Darby!". Just before he died, he passed on the treasure map to the mate of the Walrus, Billy Bones (or so Bones always maintained).

After Flint's death, the crew split up, most of them returning to England. They disposed of their shares of the unburied treasure diversely. John Silver held on to 2,000 pounds, putting it away safe in banks-and became a waterfront tavern keeper in Bristol, England. Pew spent 1,200 pounds in a single year and for the next two years afterwards begged and starved. Ben Gunn returned to the treasure island to try to find the treasure without the map, and as efforts to find it immediately failed, his crew mates marooned him on the island and left. Bones, knowing himself to be a marked man for his possession of the map (as soon as the other members of Flint's crew should desire to recover the treasure), looked for refuge in a remote part of England. His travels took him to the rural West Country seaside village of Black Hill Cove and the inn of the 'Admiral Benbow'.

Main characters

Allusions and references

Actual geography

Deadchest island as viewed from Deadman's Bay, Peter Island
Map of Unst Island

There are a number of islands which could be the real-life inspiration for Treasure Island. One story goes that a mariner uncle had told the young Stevenson tales of his travels to Norman Island in the British Virgin Islands, thus this could mean Norman Island was an indirect inspiration for the book.[7] Nearby Norman Island is a Dead Man's Chest Island, which Stevenson found 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".[8][9] If it was "the seed" for Skeleton Island, the phrase "dead man's chest", the novel in general, or all, remains unclear. Other contenders are the small islands in Queen Street Gardens in Edinburgh, as "Robert Louis Stevenson lived in Heriot Row and it is thought that the wee pond he could see from his bedroom window in Queen Street Gardens provided the inspiration for Treasure Island".[10]

There are a number of Inns which claim to have been the inspiration for places in the book. The Admiral Benbow pub is supposed to be based on the Llandoger Trow in Bristol, although it cannot be proven.[11] The Pirate's House in Savannah, Georgia is where Captain Flint is supposed to have spent his last days,[12] and his ghost is claimed to haunt the property.[13]

In 1883 Stevenson had also published The Silverado Squatters, a travel narrative of his honeymoon in 1880 in Napa Valley, California. His experiences at Silverado were kept in a journal called "Silverado Sketches", and many of his notes of the scenery around him in Napa Valley provided much of the descriptive detail for Treasure Island.

In May 1888 Stevenson spent about a month in Brielle, New Jersey along the Manasquan River. On the river is a small wooded island, then commonly known as "Osborn Island". One day Stevenson visited the island and was so impressed he whimsically re-christened it "Treasure Island" and carved his initials into a bulkhead. This took place five years after he had completed the novel. To this day, many still refer to the island as such. It is now officially named Nienstedt Island, honoring the family who donated it to the borough.[14][15]

The map of the island bears a close resemblance to that of the island of Unst in Shetland. It is thought that Stevenson may have drawn the map as a child when visiting his uncle David and father Thomas Stevenson who were building the lighthouse at Muckle Flugga, off Unst.[16]

Actual history

Historical time frame

Stevenson deliberately leaves the exact date of the novel obscure, Hawkins writing that he takes up his pen "in the year of grace 17--." However, some of the action can be connected with dates, although it is unclear if Stevenson had an exact chronology in mind. The first date is 1745, as established both by Dr. Livesey's service at Fontenoy and a date appearing in Billy Bones's log. Admiral Hawke is a household name, implying a date later than 1747, when Hawke gained fame at the Battle of Cape Finisterre and was promoted to Admiral.

Another hint, though obscure, as to the date is provided by Squire Trelawney's letter from Bristol in Chapter VII, where he indicates his wish to acquire a sufficient number of sailors to deal with "natives, buccaneers, or the odious French". This expression suggests that Great Britain was, at that time, at war with France. Two wars between England and France took place within the potential time frame: the first was the War of the Austrian Succession from 1740 to 1748, and the second was the Seven Years' War from 1756 to 1763.

Stevenson's map of Treasure Island includes the annotations Treasure Island Aug 1 1750 J.F. and Given by above J.F. to Mr W. Bones Maste of ye Walrus Savannah this twenty July 1754 W B. The first of these two dates is likely the date at which Flint left his treasure at the island; the second, just prior to Flint's death. As Flint is reliably reported to have died at least three years before the events of the novel (the length of time that Ben Gunn was marooned), it cannot take place earlier than 1757 and still be consistent with the map. The events of Treasure Island would therefore seem to have taken place no earlier than 1757 and not later than 1763.

This range of dates, however, at variance with Long John Silver's account of himself, as given to Dick while Jim Hawkins listened in the apple barrel. Silver claims to be fifty years old, which would place his birth no earlier than 1707; and both Silver and Israel Hands, who had been in Flint's crew together, claim to have had experience on the sea (presumably as pirates) for thirty years prior to their arrival at Treasure Island, i.e. since about 1727. However, Silver claims to have sailed "First with England, then with Flint", which pushes the beginning of his career to some time before 1720, the date of Captain Edward England's death, implying a longer career at sea than thirty years. Silver also says that the surgeon who amputated his leg was hanged with Roberts' crew at Corso Castle: this would mean he has been disabled at least since 1722, at an age no greater than 15 -- an age incompatible with his holding as significant an office as quartermaster under Captain Flint, or with being a crewman under England who was senior enough, and served long enough, to have "laid by nine hundred [pounds] safe".

As noted under Actual history, some of the people and events Silver claims to have witnessed were on opposite sides of Africa at the same time, and Silver's assignments of names and places are not entirely accurate. Silver's stories, then, may be no more reliable than his claim to have lost his leg while serving under Admiral Hawke, and containing inconsistencies which his audience were too ignorant to notice. Silver must either be closer to sixty than fifty, or his stories of the pirates England and Roberts are fabrications, retellings of stories he had heard from other pirates, into which he has inserted himself — which would account for their inconsistencies.

In other works

Adaptations

Film and TV

There have been over 50 movie and TV versions made.[20] Some of the notable ones include:

Film

TV

There are also a number of Return to Treasure Island sequels produced, including a 1986 Disney mini-series, a 1992 animation version, and a 1996 and 1998 TV version.

Theatre and radio

There have been over 24 major stage and radio adaptations made.[21] The number of minor adaptations remains countless.

Music

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Letley, pp.vii - viii (Stevenson, however, claims it was his map, not Lloyd's, that prompted the book).
  2. ↑ Jonathan Yardley, Stevenson's 'Treasure Island': Still Avast Delight, Washington Post, April 17, 2006
  3. ↑ Guga Books at Octavia & Co. Press
  4. ↑ Cordingly, David (1995). Under the Black Flag: The Romance and Reality of Life Among the Pirates. Page 7
  5. ↑ Ralph Delahaye Paine. The book of buried treasure; being a true history of the gold, jewels, and plate of pirates, galleons, etc., which are sought for to this day. New York : Macmillan, 1911. via Internet Archive.
  6. ↑ Cordingly, David (1995). Under the Black Flag: The Romance and Reality of Life Among the Pirates. Page 6-7.
  7. ↑ "Where's Where" (1974) (Eyre Methuen, London} ISBN 0-413-32290-4, Norman Island.
  8. ↑ David Cordingly. Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates. ISBN 0679425608.
  9. ↑ Robert Louis Stevenson. "To Sidney Colvin. Late May 1884", in Selected Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson. Page 263.
  10. ↑ "Brilliance of 'World's Child' will come alive at storytelling event", (Scotsman, 20 October 2005).
  11. ↑ The Llandoger Trow - Bristol - 1982 at "The History of Old Inns & Pubs of Bristol"
  12. ↑ The Pirates House history
  13. ↑ Ghost of Captain Flint
  14. ↑ Richard Harding Davis (1916). Adventures and Letters of Richard Harding Davis. See page 5 from Project Gutenberg.
  15. ↑ [1] History of Brielle
  16. ↑ Unst island website
  17. ↑ Reed, Thomas L. (2006). The Transforming Draught: Jekyll and Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson, and the Victorian Alcohol Debate. Pages 72-73.
  18. ↑ Cecil Adams, The Straight Dope: Did pirates bury their treasure? Did pirates really make maps where "X marks the spot"? October 5, 2007.
  19. ↑ Greene & Heaton. John Drake's Flint & Silver.
  20. ↑ Dury, Richard. Film adaptations of Treasure Island.
  21. ↑ Dury, Richard. Stage and Radio adaptations of Treasure Island.

References

External links

Editions

Resources

Works by Robert Louis Stevenson
Novels:

Treasure Island (1883) • Prince Otto (1885) • Kidnapped (1886) • The Black Arrow (1888) • The Master of Ballantrae (1889) • The Wrong Box (1889) • The Wrecker (1892) • Catriona (1893) • The Ebb-Tide (1894) • Weir of Hermiston (1896) • St. Ives (1897)

 Robert louis stevenson.jpg
Short story
collections:

New Arabian Nights (1882) • The Dynamiter (1885) • The Merry Men (1887) • Island Nights' Entertainments (1893)
Short stories:

"The Body Snatcher" (1881) • "Markheim" (1885) • "Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" (1886)
Other works:

An Inland Voyage (1878) • Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes (1879) • The Silverado Squatters (1883) • Memories and Portraits (1887) • Across the Plains (1892) • The Amateur Emigrant (1895)
Poetry:

A Child's Garden of Verses (1885) • Underwoods (1887) • Ballads (1890) • Songs of Travel and Other Verses (1896)