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{{infobox Book | | name = Treasure Island| image = | image_caption = Cover illustration by Frank Godwin (1925).]| cover_artist =| country = Scotland| genre = [Adventure and mystery| media_type = Print ([Hardcover & Paperback)] by author Robert Louis Stevenson, narrating a tale of "buccaneers 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 Bildungsroman, 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, Deserted island, and one-legged seamen with parrots on their shoulders.

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: :

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; Stevenson's father came up with the contents of Billy Bones's sea-chest, and 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.

As autumn came to Scotland, the Stevensons left their summer holiday retreat for London, but Stevenson was troubled with a life-long chronic bronchial condition that put an end to his work on the novel at about chapter fifteen. Concerned about a deadline they travelled in October to Davos, Switzerland where the clean mountain air did him wonders and he was able to continue, and, at a chapter a day, soon finished the story.



During its initial run in Young Folks from October 1881 to January 1882 it 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.Jonathan Yardley, Stevenson's 'Treasure Island': Still Avast Delight, Washington Post, April 17, 2006 Prime Minister of the United Kingdom William Ewart 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". Guga Books at Octavia & Co. Press 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",Cordingly, David (1995). Under the Black Flag: The Romance and Reality of Life Among the Pirates. Page 7 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 treasure map, but 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."Paine, Ralph Delahaye. 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. 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 Henley was crippled, ruling and dreaded by the sound voice alone, was entirely taken from you". Other books which resemble Treasure Island include Robert Michael Ballantyne's Coral Island (1871), Frederick Marryat's The Pirate (1836). H. Rider Haggard's King Solomon's Mines (1885), the first of the "Lost World (genre)" 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. 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.Cordingly, David (1995). Under the Black Flag: The Romance and Reality of Life Among the Pirates. Page 6-7.

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 is a young boy who lives at his parents’ sleepy sea-side inn, the Admiral Benbow, near Bristol, England, in the mid-18th century. One day, an old and menacing sea captain referred to as Billy Bones appears and takes a room at the inn. The captain paying "three or four gold pieces" in advance stays for "month after month, so that all the money had been long exhausted". One day, an equally menacing figure named Black Dog arrives at the Inn looking for Bill, and when the two pirates meet, Jim overhears them arguing in the parlour and finally the two begin fighting. Billy wounds Black Dog, but immediately afterwards falls to the ground from a stroke. Bill tells Jim that Black Dog was "a bad 'un" and "mind you, it's my sea chest they're after". He mutters incoherently to Jim about a man named Captain Flint and something he was given the day Flint died at Savannah. Jim's father soon dies, and the day after his funeral a blind pirate, Pew (Treasure Island), appears at the inn where he presents the captain with "The Black Spot", a secret pirate message which in this case gives Bones with an ultimatum to be met by ten o'clock that night, on pain of death. The captain dies minutes later of a stroke. Hastily, Jim and his mother unlock Billy’s sea chest (to collect payment for his inn tab; Mrs. Hawkins is determined to take neither more nor less than her due), finding money and a sealed packet inside. Hearing steps outside, they quickly leave with such money as Mrs. Hawkins has managed to count, and Jim snatches the packet as a make-weight since the count is short. They hide while Billy’s pursuers ransack the inn looking for "Flint's fist", but are interrupted: Jim and his Mother had informed the local hamlet of the threat to the inn, and though none of the inhabitants dared come with them, they have sent for help. Soon four or five Revenuers arrive, and Pew is crushed beneath a horse's hooves as his accomplices flee. Most of the other pirates escape in a lugger.

Jim realizes that the contents he has snatched from the sea chest must be valuable, so he takes the packet he has found to some local gentry acquaintances, Dr. Livesey and Squire John Trelawney. They find an account book and a map which they excitedly recognize as a map leading to the fabled treasure of Captain Flint. Trelawney immediately starts planning an expedition. Naïve in his negotiations to outfit his ship, the Hispaniola, Trelawney is tricked into hiring one of Flint’s former mates, Long John Silver as a cook, as well as many of Flint’s old crew. Only the captain and Trelawney's servants -- Hunter, Joyce and Redruth -- are completely trustworthy, but Trelawney has fallen under the charismatic spell of Silver and believes him to be the better man. The ship sets sail for the treasure island with nothing amiss except the seemingly-accidental loss of Mr Arrow, Smollett's first mate, until Jim overhears Silver’s plans for mutiny. Jim tells the captain about Silver and the rest of the rebellious crew. Captain Smollett is vindicated in the eyes of the others and becomes the leader of the "faithful crew".

Landing at the island, Captain Smollett devises a plan to get most of the mutineers off the ship, allowing them leisure time on shore. Without telling his companions, Jim sneaks into the pirates’ boat and goes ashore with them. Frightened of the pirates, Jim runs off alone into the forest. From a hiding place, he witnesses Silver’s murder of a sailor who refuses to join the mutiny. Jim flees deeper into the heart of the island, where he encounters a half-crazed man named Ben Gunn. Ben had once served in Flint’s crew but was Marooning alone on the island three years earlier.



Meanwhile, Smollett and his men have gone ashore after persuading one of the would-be mutineers, Abraham Gray, to change sides, and taken shelter in a stockade they found which Flint had built years earlier. Jim returns to the stockade and tells of his encounter with Ben. Silver visits under a white flag of truce and attempts a negotiation with the captain, but Smollett deliberately goads him into a shouting match, knowing that a pirate attack is likely sooner or later and that it may as well be sooner, while it is expected. The pirates attack the stockade within the hour, and are driven off with serious losses, but the captain is wounded and Joyce and Hunter are killed. Eager to take action, Jim follows another whim and deserts his companions, sneaking off to hunt for Ben’s handmade coracle hidden in the woods.

After finding Ben’s boat, Jim sails out to the anchored ship with the intention of cutting it adrift, thereby depriving the pirates of a means of escape. He cuts the rope, but he realizes his small boat has drifted near the pirates’ camp and fears he will be discovered. By chance, the pirates do not spot Jim, and he floats around the island until he catches sight of the ship drifting wildly. Struggling aboard, he discovers that one of the two watchmen left aboard, Israel Hands, has killed the other watchman in a drunken fit and is seriously injured himself. Jim takes control of the ship while Hands feigns helplessness, but Hands then tries to kill him. A fight ensues in which Jim's nimbleness saves him from the wounded pirate, and though Jim is wounded he manages to kill Hands.

Jim returns to the stockade at night not realizing it has since been occupied by the pirates. Silver takes Jim hostage, telling the boy that the captain has given the pirates the treasure map, provisions, and the use of the stockade in exchange for their lives. Silver is having trouble managing his men, who accuse him of treachery. Silver proposes to Jim that they help each other survive by pretending Jim is a hostage. However, the men present Silver with a black spot and inform him that he has been deposed as their commander. In a skilled attempt to gain control of his crew, Silver slyly shows them the treasure map to appease them, narrowly saving Jim's life (and Silver's) from the fickle pirates. Silver is unanimously re-elected as captain, to cries of "Silver!" and "Barbecue forever! Barbecue for cap'n!"

The next day Silver leads Jim and the last five pirates to the treasure site, but they are shocked to find it already excavated and the treasure removed except for a few stray coins. The pirates are enraged and ready to kill Silver and Jim once and for all. At that moment Dr. Livesey, Ben Gunn, and Abraham Gray appear from the bushes and fire on the pirate band, killing two and scattering three others throughout the island. Silver at this point has switched sides yet again, and because he saved Jim's life earlier, is accepted warily back into the group.



After spending three days carrying the loot from Ben's cave to the ship, the men prepare to set sail for home. There is a debate about the fate of the remaining mutineers. Despite the three pirates’ pleas, they are left marooned on the island, perhaps a kinder fate than returning them home to the gibbet, and much to the glee of Ben Gunn. Silver is allowed to join the voyage to a nearby Spanish colonization of the Americas port, where he sneaks off the ship one night with the help of Ben Gunn carrying a small portion of the treasure and is never heard of again. The voyage home is uneventful.

Squire Trelawney and Doctor Livesey resume their business as usual, despite being thousands of pounds richer. Captain Smollett retires from the sea on his share and lives peacefully in the country. Abraham Gray wisely decides to invest his share in building a career as an honest seaman, and applies himself so well to his trade that he is master and part-owner of a ship of his own by the time Hawkins begins his memoirs. Ben Gunn spends all of his money within nineteen days and soon falls back upon begging. However, he is given a small pension and a lodge to keep by the Squire (exactly the fate he had claimed to detest while still a maroon) and settles into village life, apparently as the local buffoon but generally liked.

Jim Hawkins is able to run the Admiral Benbow on his own, but suffers in a deeper way from his time on the island. "The bar silver and the arms still lie, for all that I know, where Flint buried them ... oxen and wain ropes would not bring me back again to that accursed island; and the worst dreams that ever I have are when I hear the surf booming about its coasts or start upright in bed with the sharp voice of Captain Flint talking parrot still ringing in my ears: 'Spanish dollar! Pieces of eight!'"

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, Tom Morgan, 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 death.

The whereabouts of Flint and his crew thereafter are obscure immediately thereafter, but they ended up in the town of Savannah, in colonial 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.

Main characters

Allusions and references Actual geography There are a number of islands which could be the real-life inspiration for Skeleton 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."Where's Where" (1974) (Eyre Methuen, London} ISBN 0-413-32290-4, Norman Island. 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".David Cordingly. Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates. ISBN 0679425608.Robert Louis Stevenson. "To Sidney Colvin. Late May 1884", in Selected Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson. Page 263. 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". "Brilliance of 'World's Child' will come alive at storytelling event", (The Scotsman, 20 October 2005).

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 can't be proven. The Llandoger Trow - Bristol - 1982 at "The History of Old Inns & Pubs of Bristol" The Pirate's House in Savannah, Georgia is where Captain Flint is supposed to have spent his last days, The Pirates House history and his ghost still haunts the property. Ghost of Captain Flint

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, honouring the family who donated it to the borough.Richard Harding Davis (1916). Adventures and Letters of Richard Harding Davis. See page 5 from Project Gutenberg. History of Brielle, accessed September 5, 2006

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 drew the map as a child when visiting his uncle David Stevenson (engineer) and father Thomas Stevenson who were building the lighthouse at Muckle Flugga, off Unst. Unst island website

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, placing a possible marker on the date 1747, as Hawke would not likely have been known to the characters before the Battle of Cape Finisterre, and indeed was not promoted Admiral until that year. Silver claims to be fifty years old, which places his birth date no earlier than 1696. Silver sailed "First with Edward England, then with Flint", which pushes the beginning of his career to before 1720, the date of Captain Edward England's death. He also says that the surgeon who amputated his leg was hanged with Roberts' crew at Cape Coast Castle: this would mean he has been disabled at least since 1722, more than twenty years (which would account for his considerable skill with his crutch). 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.

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. If consistency with the dates above is assumed, the adventure must have taken place before the conclusion of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748) in October 1748, which ended the War of the Austrian Succession; Great Britain did not find itself at war with France again until 1756, too late for complete consistency with the above dates.

On balance, the evidence of the text itself suggests that Billy Bones came to the Admiral Benbow in late 1747; he died in January 1748; and the expedition to the island took place in March 1748. Silver would then have been born 1697-1698, and have commenced his career as a pirate around 1718, shortly before England's death, when Silver was about twenty. The broadside that took Silver's leg and Pew's eyes could have been any time between 1720 and 1722. Captain Flint's piracy seems to have lasted from about 1720 to 1745, an unusually long career for a pirate. Flint's death at Savannah must have come around 1745, with Ben Gunn present; Gunn would be marooned on the Island shortly after, not to be rescued for another three years. These dates are of course uncertain, but perhaps provide a better fit to the narrative than alternatives.

However, these dates are wholly at variance with those provided on Stevenson's map of Treasure Island, which 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 three years, at least, before the events of the novel, it cannot take place earlier than 1757 and still be consistent with the map.

Many of the dates reconstructed from the novel depend on the accuracy of the story that the less-than-trustworthy Long John Silver tells Dick while Jim Hawkins listens in the apple barrel. 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. If Silver is lying when he claims to have served with England, or lying about his age, then much of the above chronology fails.

An alternative chronology would place the events of the story during the Seven Years' War, (1756-1763), with 1757 as the earliest possible year for the voyage of the Hispaniola. The dates in Bones's account book, and Doctor Livesey's history, are not disturbed by this change; however, 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.Dury, Richard. Film adaptations of Treasure Island. Some of the notable ones include:

Film TV

There are also a number of Return to Treasure Island sequels produced: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.Dury, Richard. Stage and Radio adaptations of Treasure Island. The number of minor adaptations remains countless.



Footnotes

References

External links Editions



Resources

{{infobox Book | | name = Treasure Island| image = | image_caption = Cover illustration by Frank Godwin (1925).]| cover_artist =| country = Scotland| genre = [Adventure and mystery| media_type = Print ([Hardcover & Paperback)] by author Robert Louis Stevenson, narrating a tale of "buccaneers 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 Bildungsroman, 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, Deserted island, and one-legged seamen with parrots on their shoulders.

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: :

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; Stevenson's father came up with the contents of Billy Bones's sea-chest, and 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.

As autumn came to Scotland, the Stevensons left their summer holiday retreat for London, but Stevenson was troubled with a life-long chronic bronchial condition that put an end to his work on the novel at about chapter fifteen. Concerned about a deadline they travelled in October to Davos, Switzerland where the clean mountain air did him wonders and he was able to continue, and, at a chapter a day, soon finished the story.



During its initial run in Young Folks from October 1881 to January 1882 it 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.Jonathan Yardley, Stevenson's 'Treasure Island': Still Avast Delight, Washington Post, April 17, 2006 Prime Minister of the United Kingdom William Ewart 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". Guga Books at Octavia & Co. Press 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",Cordingly, David (1995). Under the Black Flag: The Romance and Reality of Life Among the Pirates. Page 7 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 treasure map, but 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."Paine, Ralph Delahaye. 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. 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 Henley was crippled, ruling and dreaded by the sound voice alone, was entirely taken from you". Other books which resemble Treasure Island include Robert Michael Ballantyne's Coral Island (1871), Frederick Marryat's The Pirate (1836). H. Rider Haggard's King Solomon's Mines (1885), the first of the "Lost World (genre)" 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. 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.Cordingly, David (1995). Under the Black Flag: The Romance and Reality of Life Among the Pirates. Page 6-7.

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 is a young boy who lives at his parents’ sleepy sea-side inn, the Admiral Benbow, near Bristol, England, in the mid-18th century. One day, an old and menacing sea captain referred to as Billy Bones appears and takes a room at the inn. The captain paying "three or four gold pieces" in advance stays for "month after month, so that all the money had been long exhausted". One day, an equally menacing figure named Black Dog arrives at the Inn looking for Bill, and when the two pirates meet, Jim overhears them arguing in the parlour and finally the two begin fighting. Billy wounds Black Dog, but immediately afterwards falls to the ground from a stroke. Bill tells Jim that Black Dog was "a bad 'un" and "mind you, it's my sea chest they're after". He mutters incoherently to Jim about a man named Captain Flint and something he was given the day Flint died at Savannah. Jim's father soon dies, and the day after his funeral a blind pirate, Pew (Treasure Island), appears at the inn where he presents the captain with "The Black Spot", a secret pirate message which in this case gives Bones with an ultimatum to be met by ten o'clock that night, on pain of death. The captain dies minutes later of a stroke. Hastily, Jim and his mother unlock Billy’s sea chest (to collect payment for his inn tab; Mrs. Hawkins is determined to take neither more nor less than her due), finding money and a sealed packet inside. Hearing steps outside, they quickly leave with such money as Mrs. Hawkins has managed to count, and Jim snatches the packet as a make-weight since the count is short. They hide while Billy’s pursuers ransack the inn looking for "Flint's fist", but are interrupted: Jim and his Mother had informed the local hamlet of the threat to the inn, and though none of the inhabitants dared come with them, they have sent for help. Soon four or five Revenuers arrive, and Pew is crushed beneath a horse's hooves as his accomplices flee. Most of the other pirates escape in a lugger.

Jim realizes that the contents he has snatched from the sea chest must be valuable, so he takes the packet he has found to some local gentry acquaintances, Dr. Livesey and Squire John Trelawney. They find an account book and a map which they excitedly recognize as a map leading to the fabled treasure of Captain Flint. Trelawney immediately starts planning an expedition. Naïve in his negotiations to outfit his ship, the Hispaniola, Trelawney is tricked into hiring one of Flint’s former mates, Long John Silver as a cook, as well as many of Flint’s old crew. Only the captain and Trelawney's servants -- Hunter, Joyce and Redruth -- are completely trustworthy, but Trelawney has fallen under the charismatic spell of Silver and believes him to be the better man. The ship sets sail for the treasure island with nothing amiss except the seemingly-accidental loss of Mr Arrow, Smollett's first mate, until Jim overhears Silver’s plans for mutiny. Jim tells the captain about Silver and the rest of the rebellious crew. Captain Smollett is vindicated in the eyes of the others and becomes the leader of the "faithful crew".

Landing at the island, Captain Smollett devises a plan to get most of the mutineers off the ship, allowing them leisure time on shore. Without telling his companions, Jim sneaks into the pirates’ boat and goes ashore with them. Frightened of the pirates, Jim runs off alone into the forest. From a hiding place, he witnesses Silver’s murder of a sailor who refuses to join the mutiny. Jim flees deeper into the heart of the island, where he encounters a half-crazed man named Ben Gunn. Ben had once served in Flint’s crew but was Marooning alone on the island three years earlier.



Meanwhile, Smollett and his men have gone ashore after persuading one of the would-be mutineers, Abraham Gray, to change sides, and taken shelter in a stockade they found which Flint had built years earlier. Jim returns to the stockade and tells of his encounter with Ben. Silver visits under a white flag of truce and attempts a negotiation with the captain, but Smollett deliberately goads him into a shouting match, knowing that a pirate attack is likely sooner or later and that it may as well be sooner, while it is expected. The pirates attack the stockade within the hour, and are driven off with serious losses, but the captain is wounded and Joyce and Hunter are killed. Eager to take action, Jim follows another whim and deserts his companions, sneaking off to hunt for Ben’s handmade coracle hidden in the woods.

After finding Ben’s boat, Jim sails out to the anchored ship with the intention of cutting it adrift, thereby depriving the pirates of a means of escape. He cuts the rope, but he realizes his small boat has drifted near the pirates’ camp and fears he will be discovered. By chance, the pirates do not spot Jim, and he floats around the island until he catches sight of the ship drifting wildly. Struggling aboard, he discovers that one of the two watchmen left aboard, Israel Hands, has killed the other watchman in a drunken fit and is seriously injured himself. Jim takes control of the ship while Hands feigns helplessness, but Hands then tries to kill him. A fight ensues in which Jim's nimbleness saves him from the wounded pirate, and though Jim is wounded he manages to kill Hands.

Jim returns to the stockade at night not realizing it has since been occupied by the pirates. Silver takes Jim hostage, telling the boy that the captain has given the pirates the treasure map, provisions, and the use of the stockade in exchange for their lives. Silver is having trouble managing his men, who accuse him of treachery. Silver proposes to Jim that they help each other survive by pretending Jim is a hostage. However, the men present Silver with a black spot and inform him that he has been deposed as their commander. In a skilled attempt to gain control of his crew, Silver slyly shows them the treasure map to appease them, narrowly saving Jim's life (and Silver's) from the fickle pirates. Silver is unanimously re-elected as captain, to cries of "Silver!" and "Barbecue forever! Barbecue for cap'n!"

The next day Silver leads Jim and the last five pirates to the treasure site, but they are shocked to find it already excavated and the treasure removed except for a few stray coins. The pirates are enraged and ready to kill Silver and Jim once and for all. At that moment Dr. Livesey, Ben Gunn, and Abraham Gray appear from the bushes and fire on the pirate band, killing two and scattering three others throughout the island. Silver at this point has switched sides yet again, and because he saved Jim's life earlier, is accepted warily back into the group.



After spending three days carrying the loot from Ben's cave to the ship, the men prepare to set sail for home. There is a debate about the fate of the remaining mutineers. Despite the three pirates’ pleas, they are left marooned on the island, perhaps a kinder fate than returning them home to the gibbet, and much to the glee of Ben Gunn. Silver is allowed to join the voyage to a nearby Spanish colonization of the Americas port, where he sneaks off the ship one night with the help of Ben Gunn carrying a small portion of the treasure and is never heard of again. The voyage home is uneventful.

Squire Trelawney and Doctor Livesey resume their business as usual, despite being thousands of pounds richer. Captain Smollett retires from the sea on his share and lives peacefully in the country. Abraham Gray wisely decides to invest his share in building a career as an honest seaman, and applies himself so well to his trade that he is master and part-owner of a ship of his own by the time Hawkins begins his memoirs. Ben Gunn spends all of his money within nineteen days and soon falls back upon begging. However, he is given a small pension and a lodge to keep by the Squire (exactly the fate he had claimed to detest while still a maroon) and settles into village life, apparently as the local buffoon but generally liked.

Jim Hawkins is able to run the Admiral Benbow on his own, but suffers in a deeper way from his time on the island. "The bar silver and the arms still lie, for all that I know, where Flint buried them ... oxen and wain ropes would not bring me back again to that accursed island; and the worst dreams that ever I have are when I hear the surf booming about its coasts or start upright in bed with the sharp voice of Captain Flint talking parrot still ringing in my ears: 'Spanish dollar! Pieces of eight!'"

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, Tom Morgan, 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 death.

The whereabouts of Flint and his crew thereafter are obscure immediately thereafter, but they ended up in the town of Savannah, in colonial 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.

Main characters

Allusions and references Actual geography There are a number of islands which could be the real-life inspiration for Skeleton 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."Where's Where" (1974) (Eyre Methuen, London} ISBN 0-413-32290-4, Norman Island. 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".David Cordingly. Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates. ISBN 0679425608.Robert Louis Stevenson. "To Sidney Colvin. Late May 1884", in Selected Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson. Page 263. 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". "Brilliance of 'World's Child' will come alive at storytelling event", (The Scotsman, 20 October 2005).

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 can't be proven. The Llandoger Trow - Bristol - 1982 at "The History of Old Inns & Pubs of Bristol" The Pirate's House in Savannah, Georgia is where Captain Flint is supposed to have spent his last days, The Pirates House history and his ghost still haunts the property. Ghost of Captain Flint

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, honouring the family who donated it to the borough.Richard Harding Davis (1916). Adventures and Letters of Richard Harding Davis. See page 5 from Project Gutenberg. History of Brielle, accessed September 5, 2006

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 drew the map as a child when visiting his uncle David Stevenson (engineer) and father Thomas Stevenson who were building the lighthouse at Muckle Flugga, off Unst. Unst island website

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, placing a possible marker on the date 1747, as Hawke would not likely have been known to the characters before the Battle of Cape Finisterre, and indeed was not promoted Admiral until that year. Silver claims to be fifty years old, which places his birth date no earlier than 1696. Silver sailed "First with Edward England, then with Flint", which pushes the beginning of his career to before 1720, the date of Captain Edward England's death. He also says that the surgeon who amputated his leg was hanged with Roberts' crew at Cape Coast Castle: this would mean he has been disabled at least since 1722, more than twenty years (which would account for his considerable skill with his crutch). 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.

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. If consistency with the dates above is assumed, the adventure must have taken place before the conclusion of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748) in October 1748, which ended the War of the Austrian Succession; Great Britain did not find itself at war with France again until 1756, too late for complete consistency with the above dates.

On balance, the evidence of the text itself suggests that Billy Bones came to the Admiral Benbow in late 1747; he died in January 1748; and the expedition to the island took place in March 1748. Silver would then have been born 1697-1698, and have commenced his career as a pirate around 1718, shortly before England's death, when Silver was about twenty. The broadside that took Silver's leg and Pew's eyes could have been any time between 1720 and 1722. Captain Flint's piracy seems to have lasted from about 1720 to 1745, an unusually long career for a pirate. Flint's death at Savannah must have come around 1745, with Ben Gunn present; Gunn would be marooned on the Island shortly after, not to be rescued for another three years. These dates are of course uncertain, but perhaps provide a better fit to the narrative than alternatives.

However, these dates are wholly at variance with those provided on Stevenson's map of Treasure Island, which 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 three years, at least, before the events of the novel, it cannot take place earlier than 1757 and still be consistent with the map.

Many of the dates reconstructed from the novel depend on the accuracy of the story that the less-than-trustworthy Long John Silver tells Dick while Jim Hawkins listens in the apple barrel. 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. If Silver is lying when he claims to have served with England, or lying about his age, then much of the above chronology fails.

An alternative chronology would place the events of the story during the Seven Years' War, (1756-1763), with 1757 as the earliest possible year for the voyage of the Hispaniola. The dates in Bones's account book, and Doctor Livesey's history, are not disturbed by this change; however, 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.Dury, Richard. Film adaptations of Treasure Island. Some of the notable ones include:

Film TV

There are also a number of Return to Treasure Island sequels produced: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.Dury, Richard. Stage and Radio adaptations of Treasure Island. The number of minor adaptations remains countless.



Footnotes

References

External links Editions



Resources



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