Books

First edition in book form, with all the points of the first issue, of Stevenson's classic adventure story of "buccaneers and buried gold", his first great success as a novelist. Treasure Island was inspired by the now-famous treasure map the author had drawn to entertain his young stepson - to whom the book is dedicated - "on a rainy day in the Scottish Highlands" (Grolier). In a later essay, Stevenson remembered: "[the map] was elaborately and (I thought) beautifully coloured; the shape of it took my fancy beyond expression; it contained harbours that pleased me like sonnets; and with the unconsciousness of the predestined, I ticketed my performance 'Treasure Island'... The map was the most of the plot. I might almost say it was the whole. A few reminiscences of Poe, Defoe, and Washington Irving, a copy of Johnson's Buccaneers, the name of the Dead Man's Chest from Kingsley's At Last, some recollections of canoeing on the high seas, and the map itself, with its infinite, eloquent suggestion, made up the whole of my materials" (pp. 117-29). The original title was "The Sea Cook", then changed by the publishers into "The Treasure Island" upon first publication in Young Folks magazine, where the story was serialized from October 1881 to January 1882 under the pseudonym "Captain George North". It was only with the appearance of the book-form edition, however, that Stevenson's pirate tale received serious attention and "was immediately hailed by critics as a classic" (Grolier). This copy has the points indicative of the earliest issue: "dead man's chest" not capitalized on page 2, line 6, nor page 7, line 19; the first letter of "vain" broken in the last line, page 40; the "a" not present in line 6, page 63; the "7" not present in the pagination of page 127; the full stop not present following "opportunity" in line 20, page 178; and "worse" in line 3, page 197. The book was published on 14 November 1883. The first printing comprised 2,000 copies; of these, the first 750 were bound up with the advertisements dated "5G-783" (July 1883), present here. Copies with the July advertisements are known in different cloth colours, including green, red, and blue, with no established priority (see Carter, p. 154). Octavo. Original blue cloth, spine lettered in gilt, black coated endpapers. Housed in a custom blue cloth solander box by Rivière & Son. Map frontispiece with captions printed in red, brown, and blue; with 8 pp. of publisher's advertisements at the rear. With 20th-century typed bookseller's cataloging slip and three other pieces of ephemera loosely inserted. Extremities rubbed, spine darkened, two marks on the front cover, rear cover remaining quite bright, front inner hinge cracked, but firm, occasional spot of foxing or light mark, else clean. A very good copy. Beinecke 240; Carter, Binding Variants, p. 154; Grolier Children's 100, 48; Prideaux 11; Slater, p. 42. Robert Louis Stevenson, "My First Book: Treasure Island", in Essays in the Art of Writing, 1905.

Treasure Island is an adventure novel by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson, narrating a tale of 'buccaneers and buried gold.' It was originally serialized in the children's magazine Young Folks between 1881 and 1882 under the title 'Treasure Island or, the mutiny of the Hispaniola', with Stevenson adopting the pseudonym Captain George North. Traditionally considered a coming-of-age story, it is an adventure tale known for its atmosphere, characters, and action. It is also noted as a wily critique of the ambiguity of morality—as seen in Long John Silver—unusual for children's literature. It is one of the most frequently dramatized of all novels. The influence of Treasure Island on popular perceptions of pirates is enormous, including such elements as treasure maps marked with an 'X', schooners, the Black Spot, tropical islands, and one-legged seamen bearing parrots on their shoulders.