Robert Louis Stevenson

Treasure Island Robert Louis Stevenson

Publisher Marketing: Treasure Island is an adventure novel by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson, narrating a tale of "buccaneers and buried gold." First published as a book on 14 November 1883 by Cassell & Co., 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, Treasure Island is a tale noted for its atmosphere, characters and action, and also as a wry commentary on 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. Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson (13 November 1850 - 3 December 1894) was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer. His most famous works are Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. A literary celebrity during his lifetime, Stevenson now ranks among the 26 most translated authors in the world.[1] His works have been admired by many other writers, including Jorge Luis Borges, Bertolt Brecht, Marcel Proust, Arthur Conan Doyle, Henry James, Cesare Pavese, Ernest Hemingway, Rudyard Kipling, Jack London, Vladimir Nabokov, J. M. Barrie, and G. K. Chesterton, who said of him that he "seemed to pick the right word up on the point of his pen, like a man playing spillikins." In late 1873, on a visit to a cousin in England, Stevenson met two people who were to be of great importance to him, Sidney Colvin and Fanny (Frances Jane) Sitwell. Sitwell was a 34-year-old woman with a son, separated from her husband. She attracted the devotion of many who met her, including Colvin, who eventually married her in 1901. Stevenson was also drawn to her, and over several years they kept up a heated correspondence in which Stevenson wavered between the role of a suitor and a son (he came to address her as "Madonna"). Colvin became Stevenson's literary adviser and after his death was the first editor of Stevenson's letters. Soon after their first meeting, he had placed Stevenson's first paid contribution, an essay entitled "Roads," in The Portfolio. Stevenson was soon active in London literary life, becoming acquainted with many of the writers of the time, including Andrew Lang, Edmund Gosse, and Leslie Stephen, the editor of the Cornhill Magazine, who took an interest in Stevenson's work. Stephen in turn would introduce him to a more important friend. Visiting Edinburgh in 1875, he took Stevenson with him to visit a patient at the Edinburgh Infirmary, William Ernest Henley. Henley, an energetic and talkative man with a wooden leg, became a close friend and occasional literary collaborator, until a quarrel broke up the friendship in 1888. Henley is often seen as the model for Long John Silver in Treasure Island. Stevenson was a celebrity in his own time, but with the rise of modern literature after World War I, he was seen for much of the 20th century as a writer of the second class, relegated to children's literature and horror genres. Condemned by literary figures such as Virginia Woolf (daughter of his early mentor Leslie Stephen) and her husband Leonard, he was gradually excluded from the canon of literature taught in schools. His exclusion reached a height when in the 1973 2,000-page Oxford Anthology of English Literature Stevenson was entirely unmentioned; and The Norton Anthology of English Literature excluded him from 1968 to 2000 (1st-7th editions), including him only in the 8th edition (2006). Review Citations: Publishers Weekly 08/31/2009 pg. 52 (EAN 9781598595703, Compact Disc) Publishers Weekly 10/05/2009 pg. 51 (EAN 9780763644451, Hardcover) Hornbook Guide to Children 01/01/2010 (EAN 9780763644451, Hardcover) Wilson Middle/Junior Hi Catalo 01/01/2010 pg. 215 (EAN 9780763644451, Hardcover) Wilson Children's Catalog 01/01/2010 pg. 1145 (EAN 9780763644451, Hardcover) School Library Journal 05/01/2008 (EAN 9780739350836, Compact Disc) Kliatt 11/01/2007 pg. 50 (EAN 9780739350461, Compact Disc) Booklist Editors Choice/Media 01/01/2008 pg. 18 (EAN 9780739350461, Compact Disc) School Library Journal 05/01/2007 pg. 100 (EAN 9780836876659, Library Binding) PW Notes and Reprints 03/05/2007 pg. 64 (EAN 9780954510367, Hardcover) School Library Journal 03/01/2007 pg. 239 (EAN 9780764134913, Paperback) Hornbook Guide to Children 01/01/2007 pg. 67 (EAN 9780764134913, Paperback) Voice of Youth Advocates 02/01/2007 pg. 558 (EAN 9780764159763, Hardcover) School Library Journal 03/01/2007 pg. 239 (EAN 9780764159763, Hardcover) Hornbook Guide to Children 01/01/2007 pg. 67 (EAN 9780764159763, Hardcover) Booklist 03/15/2007 pg. 64 (EAN 9780764159763, Hardcover) Kirkus Review - Children 07/15/2005 pg. 797 (EAN 9780142404706, Paperback) School Library Journal 11/01/2005 pg. 177 (EAN 9780142404706, Paperback) Kliatt 11/01/2005 pg. 24 (EAN 9780142404706, Paperback) - *Starred Review Kliatt 01/01/2006 pg. 23 (EAN 9780142404706, Paperback) Hornbook Guide to Children 01/01/1990 (EAN 9780816718771, Hardcover) Booklist 11/15/1993 pg. 640 (EAN 9781561001408, Analog Audio Cassette) Ingram Paperback Advance 05/01/2005 pg. 63 (EAN 9781416500292, Paperback) Hornbook Guide to Children 07/01/2005 pg. 325 (EAN 9781402714573, Hardcover) Kliatt 03/01/2004 pg. 57 (EAN 9781400100781, Compact Disc) - *Starred Review PW Notes and Reprints 06/23/2003 pg. 70 (EAN 9780689854682, Hardcover) Booklist 08/01/2003 pg. 1973 (EAN 9780689854682, Hardcover) Hornbook Guide to Children 07/01/2003 pg. 103 (EAN 9780689854682, Hardcover) Hornbook Guide to Children 01/01/2004 pg. 103 (EAN 9780689854682, Hardcover) Publishers Weekly 06/23/2003 (EAN 9780689854682, Hardcover) Hornbook Guide to Children 01/01/2002 pg. 365 (EAN 9780762412754, Hardcover) School Library Journal 01/01/2003 pg. 113 (EAN 9780762412754, Hardcover) Hornbook Guide to Children 07/01/2002 pg. 365 (EAN 9780762412754, Hardcover) School Library Journal 09/01/2001 (EAN 9781840324129, Analog Audio Cassette) Hornbook Guide to Children 01/01/1990 (EAN 9780816718788, Paperback) Hornbook Guide to Children 01/01/2002 pg. 383 (EAN 9780753453803, Hardcover) Hornbook Guide to Children 07/01/2002 pg. 383 (EAN 9780753453803, Hardcover) Wilson Children's Catalog 96 01/01/1996 pg. 594 (EAN 9780811468442, Paperback) Wilson Children's Catalog 01/01/1991 pg. 562 (EAN 9780805206203, Paperback) Wilson Children's Catalog 96 01/01/1996 pg. 594 (EAN 9780805027730, Hardcover) Wilson Children's Catalog 01/01/1991 pg. 562 (EAN 9780684171609, Hardcover) Wilson Children's Catalog 96 01/01/1996 pg. 594 (EAN 9780684171609, Hardcover) Wilson Middle/Junior Hi Catalo 01/01/2009 pg. 1015 (EAN 9780684171609, Hardcover) Wilson Children's Catalog 01/01/2010 pg. 1145 (EAN 9780684171609, Hardcover) Wilson Senior High Core Col 01/01/2011 pg. 1065 (EAN 9780684171609, Hardcover) Hornbook Guide to Children 01/01/1990 (EAN 9780679904021, Hardcover) Wilson Children's Catalog 96 01/01/1996 pg. 594 (EAN 9780679418009, Hardcover) Wilson Children's Catalog 01/01/2001 pg. 528 (EAN 9780679418009, Hardcover) Wilson Children's Catalog 01/01/2010 pg. 114 (EAN 9780689832123, Paperback) Wilson Senior High Core Col 01/01/2011 pg. 1065 (EAN 9780689832123, Paperback) School Library Journal 07/01/1996 pg. 101 (EAN 9780670869206, Hardcover) New York Times 09/22/1996 pg. 28 (EAN 9780670869206, Hardcover) Hornbook Guide to Children 01/01/1996 pg. 302 (EAN 9780670869206, Hardcover) Wilson Children's Catalog 01/01/1993 pg. 76 (EAN 9780670846856, Hardcover) Wilson Children's Catalog 96 01/01/1996 pg. 594 (EAN 9780670846856, Hardcover) Booklist 11/15/1992 pg. 590 (EAN 9780670846856, Hardcover) School Library Journal 01/01/1993 pg. 133 (EAN 9780670846856, Hardcover) Hornbook Guide to Children 01/01/1992 (EAN 9780670846856, Hardcover) Hornbook Guide to Children 01/01/2013 pg. 84 (EAN 9781442474444, Hardcover) Hornbook Guide to Children 07/01/2011 pg. 368 (EAN 9781402775451, Hardcover) Wilson Children's Catalog 01/01/2012 pg. 164 (EAN 9781402775451, Hardcover) Wilson Middle/Junior Hi Catalo 01/01/2012 pg. 120 (EAN 9781402775451, Hardcover) Kirkus Reviews 06/01/2010 (EAN 9789380028217, Paperback) Entertainment Weekly 03/26/2010 pg. 75 (EAN 9780141192451, Hardcover) School Library Journal 10/01/2010 pg. 60 (EAN 9781402773587, Paperback) Publishers Weekly 03/08/2010 pg. 42 (EAN 9781597071857, Hardcover) Contributor Bio:  Stevenson, Robert Louis Robert Louis (Balfour) Stevenson was a prolific Scottish poet and novelist in the 19th century. He was admired by many other authors, and his work includes The Black Arrow, Kidnapped, and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He died in 1894.