Treasure Island

“ Treasure Island is a “boy’s book” in the sense that it embodies a boy’s vision of the extraordinary, but it is unique in this, and calculated to fascinate the weary mind of experience, that what we see in it is not only the ideal fable but, as part and parcel of that, as it were, the young reader himself and his state of mind: we seem to read it over his shoulder, with an arm around his neck. It is all as perfect as a well-played boy’s game, and nothing can exceed the spirit and skill, the humour and the open-air feeling with which the thing is kept at the palpitating pitch. ”

“ That was Flint's treasure that we had come so far to seek and that had cost already the lives of seventeen men from the Hispaniola. How many it had cost in the amassing, what blood and sorrow, what good ships scuttled on the deep, what brave men walking the plank blindfold, what shot of cannon, what shame and lies and cruelty, perhaps no man alive could tell. Yet there were still three upon that island—Silver, and old Morgan, and Ben Gunn—who had each taken his share in these crimes, as each had hoped in vain to share in the reward. ”

“ Of Treasure Island itself one finds it difficult to speak the unexaggerated word. That the subject itself and many of its details were reminiscential with Stevenson matters not. It is the unique fusion of incident and character-interest that makes the book so remarkable. It is action, action, action, from the first sentence to the last. Yet every one who plays his part in the action is as deeply characterized as if he were the centre of an introspective novel. It is not alone the sea cook himself ”

“ And I was going to sea myself, to sea in a schooner, with a piping boatswain and pig-tailed singing seamen, to sea, bound for an unknown island, and to seek for buried treasure!
While I was still in this delightful dream, we came suddenly in front of a large inn and met Squire Trelawney, all dressed out like a sea-officer, in stout blue cloth, coming out of the door with a smile on his face and a capital imitation of a sailor's walk.
“Here you are,” he cried, “and the doctor came last night from London. Bravo! The ship's company complete!”
“Oh, sir,” cried I, “when do we sail?” ”

“ In three minutes I had the Hispaniola sailing easily before the wind along the coast of Treasure Island, with good hopes of turning the northern point ere noon, and beating down again as far as North Inlet before high water, when we might beach her safely, and wait till the subsiding tide permitted us to land. ”

“ I remembered that the current sets northward along the whole west coast of Treasure Island; and seeing from my position that I was already under its influence, I preferred to leave Haulbowline Head behind me, and reserve my strength for an attempt to land upon the kindlier-looking Cape of the Woods.
There was a great, smooth swell upon the sea. The wind blowing steady and gentle from the south, there was no contrariety between that and the current, and the billows rose and fell unbroken. ”

“ A complete fusion, however, is no doubt rare, and requires consummate art. Treasure Island, of course, is a pure novel of adventure. It satisfies what he somewhere describes as the criterion of a good 'romance.' The writer and his readers throw themselves into the events, enjoy the thrilling excitement, and do not bother themselves with questions of psychology. Treasure Island, indeed, contains Silver, who, to my mind, is his most successful hero. ”

“ Alexander Smollett, master; David Livesey, ship's doctor; Abraham Gray, carpenter's mate; John Trelawney, owner; John Hunter and Richard Joyce, owner's servants, landsmen—being all that is left faithful of the ship's company—with stores for ten days at short rations, came ashore this day and flew British colours on the log-house in Treasure Island. Thomas Redruth, owner's servant, landsman, shot by the mutineers; James Hawkins, cabin-boy—
And at the same time, I was wondering over poor Jim Hawkins' fate. ”

“ Stevenson, as I understood, began Treasure Island more to entertain Lloyd Osbourne than anything else; the chapters being regularly read to the family circle as they were written, and with scarcely a purpose beyond. The lad became Stevenson’s trusted companion and collaborator—clearly with a touch of genius. ”

“ It is possible to read Treasure Island over and over again, because it is good fun. There is a constant flow of checkered incident, there is enough simple character to stand the treasure-seekers on their legs, and the book is a book in its own right. It does not need defence or analysis; it sustains its own note, and it is as natural and jolly an adventure-story as one could wish. ”

“ And to many readers his revelation of his own personal qualities is the greatest charm of all. What he sees, he has seen for himself, not through others' eyes. His thoughts are his own, not the borrowed garments of other men. His good humor, his playful spirit, his high courage, his innate truthfulness and honesty,—all these are in his books for the eye that will see.
Stevenson called Treasure Island his "first book.'"' He meant, not the first book that he had published, but the first that had a great success. ”

“ It was fairly prosperous. The ship proved to be a good ship, the crew were capable seamen, and the captain thoroughly understood his business. But before we came the length of Treasure Island, two or three things had happened which require to be known.
Mr. Arrow, first of all, turned out even worse than the captain had feared. He had no command among the men, and people did what they pleased with him. But that was by no means the worst of it; for after a day or two at sea he began to appear on deck with hazy eye, red cheeks, stuttering tongue, and other marks of drunkenness. ”

“ Pee-wee shouted; “because the more excited you get the faster you eat. Treasure Island is better than Dolly Dimple for eating those things—jelly cones. And anyway scouts have to be loyal and we’ll stick to you till they’re all gone and besides that I’ve read Treasure Island so I don’t have to listen if I don’t want to, I can just eat. Gee, I want to see you start making them because if they’re kind of disguised as ice cream cones I bet they’re good.” ”

“ The shores of North Inlet were as thickly wooded as those of the southern anchorage; but the space was longer and narrower, and more like, what in truth it was, the estuary of a river. Right before us, at the southern end, we saw the wreck of a ship in the last stages of dilapidation. It had been a great vessel of three masts, but had lain so long exposed to the injuries of the weather, that it was hung about with great webs of dripping seaweed, and on the deck of it shore bushes had taken root, and now flourished thick with flowers. ”

“ Chub corrected. Harry clapped her hands.
“Couldn’t we call it that?” she asked eagerly.
“That’s its name henceforth,” replied Chub solemnly. “And we ought really to change the names of those islands there to Snip and Methuselah!”
“I’m afraid we can’t do that,” laughed Roy. “They’ve been called Treasure Island and Far Island for years.”
“I tell you, though,” cried Chub. “The Grapes [86] haven’t been named. There are eight of them. We’ll name those!”
They hurried past the point to where a cluster of tiny islets, the largest scarcely bigger than a barn door, lay just off the shore. ”

“ Allison decided to inject a woman into his “Reminiscence of Treasure Island,” as he styles it, which was most adroitly done in the fifth verse—last written—and in the private copies it is set in Italics as a delicate intimation that the theme of a woman was foreign to the main idea which he attempted to carry out just as he believed Stevenson might have done. There was no woman on Treasure Island yet she passes here without question. ”

“ Treasure Island indeed contains Silver, who, to my mind, is his most successful hero. But Silver incarnates the spirit in which the book is to be read; the state of mind in which we accept genial good humor as a complete apology for cold-blooded murder. Piracy is for the time to be merely one side of the game; and in a serious picture of human life, which of course is out of that sphere, we should have required a further attempt to reconcile us to the psychological monstrosity."—Leslie Stephen's Studies of a Biographer.
"It is said that the painters can, and do, produce a new type of face. ”

“ Stevenson's interest in places and in maps was always great. In A Little Gossip on Romance he has well expressed his feeling that there is a certain kind of scene appropriate to a certain kind of event; and that many places only await the advent of some genius who will make them famous by fitting to them some appropriate incident. In this case the map, which he called Treasure Island, was the fire of his inspiration and the backbone of his plot. He fell to work upon the story eagerly, writing the first fifteen chapters at the rate of a chapter a day. ”

“ Gray and Ben Gunn came and went with the boat, while the rest, during their absences, piled treasure on the beach. Two of the bars, slung in a rope's-end, made a good load for a grown man—one that he was glad to walk slowly with. For my part, as I was not much use at carrying, I was kept busy all day in the cave, packing the minted money into bread-bags. ”

“ It was about nine miles long and five across, shaped, you might say, like a fat dragon standing up, and had two fine land-locked harbours, and a hill in the centre part marked "The Spy-glass." There were several additions of a later date; but above all, three crosses of red ink—two on the north part of the island, one in the southwest, and, beside this last, in the same red ink, and in a small, neat hand, very different from the captain's tottery characters, these words:— "Bulk of treasure here." ”

“ It beats the Treasure Island—or any he has done!"—Punch.
"Its description of the scenery of the Highlands in the old, wild times is as charming as a vivid imagination could make it; and the description of the cowardly old miser who plotted his nephew's death rather than give him up his inheritance, is as vivid as anything which Mr. Stevenson's singular genius has yet invented for us."—Spectator.
CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited, Ludgate Hiil, London; and at all Booksellers.
Treasure Island. By Robert louis
Stevenson. With 25 Illustrations and a Map. Forty-Fourth Thousand. Price 3s. 6d. ”

“ I was also remembering that that was the very island I’d wanted to explore when I’d first gotten the idea of playing Robinson Crusoe and Treasure Island, and which had got us tangled up in the mystery of the buried treasure, most of which we’d finally found. ”

“ But the budding romancer probably had no misgivings, and the young lad, Lloyd Osbourne, owing to whom the book was written, and who gave orders that no women were to appear in the story, was there to indicate by his enthusiasm the reception that Treasure Island was to receive from the youth of the world. Like so many others of his prefaces, whether in verse or in prose, this one was not used when the book was published; and its present first appearance in type is an especially interesting contribution to Stevenson literature. ”

“ Why not give them the berths here beside the cabin?—second point."
"Any more?" asked Mr. Trelawney.
"One more," said the captain. "There's been too much blabbing already."
"Far too much," agreed the doctor.
"I'll tell you what I've heard myself," continued Captain Smollett: "that you have a map of an island; that there's crosses on the map to show where treasure is; and that the island lies——" And then he named the latitude and longitude exactly.
"I never told that," cried the squire, "to a soul!"
"The hands know it, sir," returned the captain. ”

“ I took my way straight for the east coast of the island, for I was determined to go down the sea side of the spit to avoid all chance of observation from the anchorage. It was already late in the afternoon, although still warm and sunny. As I continued to thread the tall woods, I could hear from far before me not only the continuous thunder of the surf, but a certain tossing of foliage and grinding of boughs which showed me the sea breeze had set in higher than usual. ”

“ Do you know that Treasure Island has appeared? In the November number of Henley’s Magazine, a capital number anyway, there is a funny publisher’s puff of it for your book; also a bad article by me. Lang dotes on Treasure Island: “Except Tom Sawyer and the Odyssey,” he writes, “I never liked any romance so much.” I will inclose the letter though. The Bogue is angelic, although very dirty. It has rained—at last! It was jolly cold when the rain came. ”

“ The sight of so many good-humored faces (especially the blacks) , the taste of the tropical fruits, and above all, the lights that began to shine in the town, made a most charming contrast to our dark and bloody sojourn on the island; and the doctor and the squire, taking me along with them, went ashore to pass the early part of the night. Here they met the captain of an English man-of-war, fell in talk with him, went on board his ship, and in short, had so agreeable a time that day was breaking when we came alongside the Hispaniola. ”

“ Nothing could have been more fortunate than the circumstances under which Treasure Island was produced. It was meant for boys, and the hero, who speaks in the first person, is himself a boy. Now boys are singularly and even umreasonably intolerant of posturing or 'manner.' Without affectation themselves, they are satanically keen at detecting it in others. Even fitting cleverness, unless 'craftily qualified,' appears to them, in their sturdy barbarism, a highly suspicious trait, and verbal cleverness is downright unbearable. A wholesome control was thus exercised over the style of the romance. ”