Treasure Island

Treasure Island

Robert Louis Stevenson

      One of the greatest fictional adventure tales for young people is "Treasure Island" by Robert Louis Stevenson. This classic story of a boy's coming-of-age in the midst of a life and death struggle over a buried treasure has inspired young people for many years. But it also the basis for much of the mythology that surrounds pirates in the public mind continuing to this day. Just as Hollywood's Western movies have their archetypes, so does the classic (and modern) Pirate movie. Stevenson's Long John Silver, Ben Gunn and Captain Flint provide those archetypes.

Reading Treasure Island again I was struck by this introduction by the author:

TO THE HESITATING PURCHASER

If sailor tales to sailor tunes,

Storm and adventure, heat and cold,

If schooners, islands, and maroons,

And buccaneers, and buried gold,

And all the old romance, retold

Exactly in the ancient way,

Can please, as me they pleased of old,

The wiser youngsters of today:

--So be it, and fall on! If not,

If studious youth no longer crave,

His ancient appetites forgot,

Kingston, or Ballantyne the brave,

Or Cooper of the wood and wave:

So be it, also! and may I

And all my pirates share the grave

Where these and their creations lie!