Blaine's Reviews > Treasure Island

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!

I honestly don’t remember if I ever actually read Treasure Island as a kid. Between various movies (Muppet and otherwise), it’s a story that’s just part of popular culture. Practically every pirate stereotype comes from this novel. Buried treasure, and a map to that treasure where X literally marks the spot. Mutiny. Drunk pirates. Peg legs. A talking parrot on the shoulder. “Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest—Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!”

Robert Louis Stevenson reportedly wrote this book for his 12-year-old son, and I don’t consider it an insult to say that it reads that way. The protagonist, Jim Hawkins, is a young man caught between the mutinous pirates, led by the charismatic Long John Silver, and the smaller band of honest men, led by honest Captain Smollet. The book is full of action sequences, narrow escapes, crosses and double-crosses. It’s not subtle, and outside of Long John Silver—whose complexity is the only real wrinkle to the story—the characters are exactly who they seem to be.

As an adult, I preferred reading The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which is a much more serious story exploring the duality of human nature and the struggle within each of us between good and evil. But Treasure Island is every bit as timeless and influential; it’s simply written for a younger audience. The fact that one person created both of these classics is remarkable. If you’ve never read it before, or are looking for a classic action-adventure tale, it’s recommended.