Treasure Island

 

Oystermouth Castle

12^th August 2021, Oystermouth Castle.  Quantum Theatre production are performing Treasure Island.

Robert Louis Stevenson

“Treasure Island” original title “The Sea Cook: A Story For Boys”, is an adventure novel written by the Scottish author, Robert Louis Stevenson. It was first serialised 1881-82 being published in Young Folks,  by it was finally published 1883.

Billy Bones
Illustration by N. C. Wyeth,
for the 1911 edition 

The plot of the book. “An old sailor named Billy Bones  comes to lodge in the rural Admiral Benbow Inn on the Bristol Channel, in England. He tells the innkeeper's son,

Jim Hawkins
One more Step, Mr. Hands
illustration by N. C. Wyeth,
1911

Jim Hawkins, to keep a lookout for "a one-legged seafaring man". A former shipmate, Black Dog, confronts Bones and engages in a violent fight with him. After Black Dog is run off, a blind beggar named Pew visits to give Bones "the black spot" as a summons to share a map leading to buried treasure. Shortly thereafter, Bones suffers a stroke and dies. Pew and his accomplices attack the inn, but Jim and his mother escape while taking some money and a mysterious packet from Bones' sea chest. Pew is trampled to death by excise officers.

Inside the packet, Jim and his mother find a map of an island on which the infamous pirate Captain Flint  hid his treasure. Jim shows the map to the local physician Dr. Livesey  and the squire John Trelawney. They decide to make an expedition to the island, with Jim serving as a cabin boy. They set sail on Trelawney's schooner, the Hispaniola, under Captain Smollett. Much of the crew is later revealed to have been pirates who served under Captain Flint; the most notable is the ship's one-legged cook

Jim Hawkins and Long John Silver
illustration by N. C. Wyeth, 1911

Long John Silver. Jim overhears these conspirators' plan to mutiny after the salvage of the treasure and to assassinate the captain and the loyal men, while sitting in an apple-barrel.

After they arrive at the island, Jim joins the shore party and begins to explore the island. He meets a marooned pirate named Benn Gunn, who was also a former member of Flint's crew. The situation comes to a head after the mutineers arm themselves, and Smollett's men take refuge in an abandoned stockade. During an attack on the stockade, Jim finds his way there and re-joins the crew. Jim manages to make his way to the Hispaniola and cuts the ship's anchorage, allowing the ship to drift along the ebb tide. Jim boards the Hispaniola and encounters Israel Hands, who was severely injured in a dispute with one of his companions. Hands helps Jim beach the schooner in the northern bay, but then attempts to kill Jim with a knife. Jim escapes, climbs into the shrouds of the ship and shoots his pursuer.

Jim goes back ashore and returns to the stockade, where he is horrified to find only Silver and the pirates. Silver prevents Jim's immediate death and tells Jim that when everyone found the ship was gone, the captain's party agreed to a treaty whereby they gave up the stockade and the map. In the morning, the doctor arrives to treat the wounded and sick pirates and tells Silver to look out for trouble when they find the site of the treasure. After he leaves, Silver and the others set out with the map, taking Jim along as hostage. They encounter a skeleton, arms oriented toward the treasure, which unnerves the party. Ben Gunn also scares the crew by shouting out Captain Flint's last words from the forest, making the pirates believe Flint's ghost is haunting the island. Eventually, they find the treasure cache empty. The pirates nearly charge at Silver and Jim, but shots are fired by the ship's command along with Gunn, from ambush. Livesey explains that Gunn had already found the treasure and taken it to his cave. The expedition members load much of the treasure onto the ship and sail away. At their first port in Spanish America, where they will sign on more crew, Silver steals a bag of money and escapes. The rest sail back to Bristol and divide up the treasure. Jim says there is more left on the island, but he for one will not undertake another voyage to recover it.”

William Gladstone

One of the many readers who enjoyed the novel, was William Gladstone.

However, Robert Louis Stevenson, who also wrote other novels including “Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”, 1886, “Kidnapped”, 1886 and “A Child’s Garden of Verses”, 1885.

Even though Stevenson, born and educated at Edinburgh, Scotland suffered bronchial trouble for most his life, he did continue to write and travel widely even although with his poor health.  Whilst in London, Stevenson did mix with the London literary circles, who he received encouragement from the likes of Andrew Lang, Edmund Goose, Leslie Stephen and W. E. Henley.  However, it is closer to home that we can really look where Stevenson, was first was first noticed as a writer, with the help of

Amy Dillwyn

 Amy Dillwyn, whom the like the aforementioned mentioned was a literary critic wrote her review of the “Treasure Island” for “The Spectator”, 1883

During the 1890s, Stevenson settled in Samoa.  It was here where Stevenson died 1894, aged 44. Stevenson was buried at the Stevenson Family Estate Grounds, Vailima, Tuamasaga, Samoa