Robert Louis Stevenson
During my Christmas shopping last year, I came across a three-book set from Puffin Classics books called The Adventure Collection. It includes Treasure Island, Wind in the Willows and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. I thought I might give them to one of my relatives but when it came to wrapping, I couldn’t decide who would appreciate them most and ended up just keeping them for myself.
The books are paperback and feature some nice cover art which you can see here
I’m currently reading Treasure Island and thoroughly enjoying it as I knew I would. There is something about Stevenson’s writing style that is beautiful and gripping. It’s the way he describes his scenes using just a few words to evoke senses so that you feel immersed in the story. This immersion means that when the evil blind Pew is tap tap tapping ever closer to our hiding Hawkins we feel a real sense of peril. But Stevenson doesn’t over do it with melodrama, on the contrary, Hawkins’ narration seems to underplay things. As Hawkins lies stiff with fear in the bottom of an apple barrel, he simply states that he was filled with a mighty dread and dared not move (or something like that), there are no descriptions of heart beating so loudly he thought they might hear it and sweat dripping or stomach churning etc though you sort of insert all that stuff yourself because you’re right there with him.
I first encountered Stevenson’s writing when I read The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde a few years ago. I thought that with all the adaptations and retellings of this story that I might be a bit bored by it but that was not the case and if you haven’t read it, I strongly recommend it simply because it has inspired so much other literature. And after you’ve read it, go and watch Stephen Moffat’s mini-series Jekyll because it is also awesome.
In the back of my copy of Jekyll and Hyde is an incomplete story of Stevenson’s called Weir of Hermiston which is also great (but frustrating because it breaks off and you really want to know what happens)
So I’m enjoying Treasure Island (yo ho ho and a bottle of rum) which according to the preface is the prototype of all our pirate-y fiction even to this day (arrr). I feel I will be well versed in pirate lore by the time of this years talk like a pirate day.
In the meantime, I’m off to find out how little Jim Hawkins survives his sea journey with Long John Silver and his treacherous crew on board the Hispaniola. Remember, X marks the spot.
