Robert Louis Stevenson

Treasure Island Robert Louis Stevenson

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 through 1882 under the title Treasure Island, or the mutiny of the Hispaniola, credited to the pseudonym "Captain George North". It was first published as a book on 14 November 1883 by Cassell & Co. Treasure Island is traditionally considered a coming-of-age story, and is noted for its atmosphere, characters, and action. It is also noted 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. Its influence is enormous on popular perceptions of pirates, 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. Plot summary Stevenson's map of Treasure Island Jim Hawkins hiding in the apple-barrel, listening to the pirates PART I-"THE OLD BUCCANEER" An old sailor, calling himself "the captain"-real name "Billy" Bones-comes to lodge at the Admiral Benbow Inn on the west English coast during the mid-1700s, paying the innkeeper's son, Jim Hawkins, a few pennies to keep a lookout for a one-legged "seafaring man." A seaman with intact legs shows up, frightening Billy-who drinks far too much rum-into a stroke, and Billy tells Jim that his former shipmates covet the contents of his sea chest. After a visit from yet another man, Billy has another stroke and dies; Jim and his mother (his father has also died just a few days before) unlock the sea chest, finding some money, a journal, and a map. The local physician, Dr. Livesey, deduces that the map is of an island where a deceased pirate-Captain Flint-buried a vast treasure. The district squire, Trelawney, proposes buying a ship and going after the treasure, taking Livesey as ship's doctor and Jim as cabin boy. Robert Louis Stevenson, né le 13 novembre 1850 à Édimbourg et mort le 3 décembre 1894 à Vailima (Samoa), est un écrivain écossais et un grand voyageur, célèbre pour son roman L'Île au trésor (1883), pour sa nouvelle L'Étrange Cas du docteur Jekyll et de M. Hyde (1886) et pour son récit Voyage avec un âne dans les Cévennes (1879). Stevenson est parfois considéré comme un auteur de romans d'aventure ou de récits fantastiques pour adolescents, mais son oeuvre a une tout autre dimension: il a d'ailleurs été salué avec enthousiasme par les plus grands de ses contemporains et de ses successeurs. Ses nouvelles et romans manifestent en effet une profonde intelligence de la narration, de ses moyens et de ses effets. Il exploite tous les ressorts du récit comme la multiplication des narrateurs et des points de vue, et pratique en même temps une écriture très visuelle, propice aux scènes particulièrement frappantes.