Was there ever a 'Treasure Island'?

Raffle prize

Certainly, Robert Louis Stevenson’s island was dreamed up out of his imagination, to amuse his twelve year old stepson. Writing to a friend about the book in 1881, he said, ‘if this don’t fetch the kids, why, they have gone rotten since my day’.

But the story at least was founded on a history of buccaneers and pirates, going back to those British heroes, Sir Francis Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh, both of whom made their reputations and fortunes through the capture of Spanish ships and treasure off the West Indies in the sixteenth century.

There were of course many less famous and less savoury characters at this work too. You may have heard of Blackbeard, a much feared pirate who cruised the Spanish Main, off Central America and the West Indies, at the turn of the eighteenth century. Blackbeard died in hand to hand fighting on a ship sent by the government in Virginia to suppress piracy. Indeed most pirates came to a sticky end, even if they did not actually walk the plank.

And when Stevenson created Ben Gunn, the seaman abandoned on the island by Captain Flint, he may have had in mind another castaway, Robinson Crusoe, created by Daniel Defoe and based on the real experience of Alexander Selkirk who spent four and half years on an island in the Juan Fernandez archipelago, off the coast of Chile, at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Amazingly, in 2005, over 600 barrels of gold coins were found buried on this island, probably by the Spaniards all those years ago. So this was a real Treasure Island!!

And of course there is a pirate captain in that other wonderful story, Peter Pan. And there is treasure found on an island in Swallows and Amazons too. Can you think of any others?

What is for sure is that these and Stevenson’s story lives on and on. I read Treasure Island last year for the first time and could not put it down. And I am so looking forward to the film, being shown by GalleryFilm at Dulwich Picture Gallery on 6 December. Book your ticket now!!  More info.

NB. Come dressed up – a hat, a parrot, anything! Prizes for everyone and a free prize draw of – guess what – ‘Treasure Island’ by Robert Louis Stevenson, a brand new edition by Walker Books, illustrated by John Lawrence worth £20 and donated by Tales on Moon Lane.