I hadn’t reread this book since my childhood, and due to my Black Sails fannishness, I thought it was time. It held up pretty well: you can see why it became an instant classic. Incidentally, given Stevenson originally thought it up to amuse his stepson, and given the tragic fate of other child muses of children's classics, I checked what became of the stepson, and lo, he seems to have had a good life, and also later collaborated with his stepfather on three different books.

In the decades since I've read Treasure Island first, I had forgotten some parts: I hadn't recalled that Jim's father is still alive (if sick and then dying) at the start of the book. Probably because his mother in her one big scene (returning to the inn despite the pirates because damm it, her property is there) makes a far more vivid impression. Incidentally, current day children and YA books tend to kill off mothers if they don't kill off both parents, so Stevenson killing off Hawkins Senior (and not making a big deal of him later in the book in Jim's memories) is unusual. Not that Jim & father figures isn't a big issue: Doctor Livesey and Captain Smollett are the good, if remote ones, while John Silver is the very present, seductive and bad one.

The first part is great with setting up atmosphere, mystery and suspense, and it's fast paced, while the narration then slows down a bit until Jim discovers the mutiny plans, but the story never feels slow. Incidentally, Billy Bones drinking himself to death (and the information that so did Flint in the past) feels sad now to me in a way it didn't for child!selenak due to Black Sails. Actually Silver is the only pirate in the book who doesn't have an alcohol problem, but while I remembered Billy Bones dying of rum and fear at the start of the novel clearly, I had forgotten the part much later where Jim is alone on the Hispaniola with the dying Israel Hands, which in terms of creepy intense set pieces is as effective as the first chapter and Jim in the apple barrel overhearing the mutineers.

Something else I had forgotten was that there's much hostility between the Squire and Captain Smollett at the start, and that even Jim doesn't like Smollett much in the beginning. Squire Trelawney constantly misjudging everyone is a running joke (the Squire really is basically Prince George from the third season of Blackadder in this book), but it's interesting that Stevenson doesn't go with the children's book habit of making a child's judgment of character instinctively right, and spotting villainy and virtue by heart. It makes Jim a more realistic boy. As does the fact that when he does find out the truth about Silver, the fact Silver uses the same line of praise he used for Jim to the next youngest crew member outrages him almost more than the fact Silver is planning a mutiny ("You may imagine how I felt when I heard this abominable old rogue addressing another in the very same words of flattery as he had used to myself. I think, if I had been able, that I would have killed him through the barrel ").

Something else I hadn't known was that Stevenson later wrote a hilarious meta fiction, a debate between Silver and Smollett as to which of them their author likes best. You can find the entire text here. But I can't resist quoting the entire opening, because, well, you'll see, plus it's a good example of Stevenson's style:

“Good-morning, Cap’n,” said the first, with a man-o’-war salute, and a beaming countenance.

“Ah, Silver!” grunted the other. “You’re in a bad way, Silver.”

“Now, Cap’n Smollett,” remonstrated Silver, “dooty is dooty, as I knows, and none better; but we’re off dooty now; and I can’t see no call to keep up the morality business.”

“You’re a damned rogue, my man,” said the Captain.

“Come, come, Cap’n, be just,” returned the other. “There’s no call to be angry with me in earnest. I’m on’y a chara’ter in a sea story. I don’t really exist.”

“Well, I don’t really exist either,” says the Captain, “which seems to meet that.”

“I wouldn’t set no limits to what a virtuous chara’ter might consider argument,” responded Silver. “But I’m the villain of this tale, I am; and speaking as one sea-faring man to another, what I want to know is, what’s the odds?”

“Were you never taught your catechism?” said the Captain. “Don’t you know there’s such a thing as an Author?”

“Such a thing as a Author?” returned John, derisively. “And who better’n me? And the p’int is, if the Author made you, he made Long John, and he made Hands, and Pew, and George Merry - not that George is up to much, for he’s little more’n a name; and he made Flint, what there is of him; and he made this here mutiny, you keep such a work about; and he had Tom Redruth shot; and - well, if that’s a Author, give me Pew!”

“Don’t you believe in a future state?” said Smollett. “Do you think there’s nothing but the present story-paper?”

“I don’t rightly know for that,” said Silver; “and I don’t see what it’s got to do with it, anyway. What I know is this: if there is sich a thing as a Author, I’m his favourite chara’ter. He does me fathoms better’n he does you - fathoms, he does. And he likes doing me. He keeps me on deck mostly all the time, crutch and all; and he leaves you measling in the hold, where nobody can’t see you, nor wants to, and you may lay to that! If there is a Author, by thunder, but he’s on my side, and you may lay to it!”

“I see he’s giving you a long rope,” said the Captain. “But that can’t change a man’s convictions. I know the Author respects me; I feel it in my bones; when you and I had that talk at the blockhouse door, who do you think he was for, my man?”

“And don’t he respect me?” cried Silver. “Ah, you should ’a’ heard me putting down my mutiny, George Merry and Morgan and that lot, no longer ago’n last chapter; you’d heard something then! You’d ’a’ seen what the Author thinks o’ me! But come now, do you consider yourself a virtuous chara’ter clean through?”

“God forbid!” said Captain Smollett, solemnly. “I am a man that tries to do his duty, and makes a mess of it as often as not. I’m not a very popular man at home, Silver, I’m afraid!” and the Captain sighed.

Fandom ,you couldn't do better with your meta fiction. :) Anyway, as you see here, Stevenson does the Victorian novel thing of writing out accents and dialect. All the pirates have one (though Silver's is flexible depending on whom he talks to), none of the heroes do, except for ex pirates Ben Gunn and Gray (the existence of Gray was another thing I had forgotten). The most upper class person of the book, Squire Trelawney, is also characterized as the most foolish one, though, and the one who gets to display all the -isms when he writes to Doctor Livesey, re: Silver:

I forgot to tell you that Silver is a man of substance; I know of my own knowledge that he has a banker's account, which has never been overdrawn. He leaves his wife to manage the inn; and as she is a woman of colour, a pair of old bachelors like you and I may be excused for guessing that it is the wife, quite as much as the health, that sends him back to roving.

(Something that hadn't occured to me before was to wonder what Silver's plan re: that account was if everything had happened according to scheme; after all, he couldn't have returned to Bristol either way. However, Stevenson has that covered:

"Well," said the other, "but all the other money's gone now, ain't it? You daren't show face in Bristol after this."

"Why, where might you suppose it was?" asked Silver derisively.

"At Bristol, in banks and places," answered his companion.

"It were," said the cook; "it were when we weighed anchor. But my old missis has it all by now. And the Spy-glass is sold, lease and goodwill and rigging; and the old girl's off to meet me."

There are no women in the book other than Jim's mother who at least gets one scene of action, and Mrs. Silver, who only gets mentioned, but intrigues me a lot, especially this does sound like a partnership. Says Jim at the end: Of Silver we have heard no more. That formidable seafaring man with one leg has at last gone clean out of my life; but I dare say he met his old Negress, and perhaps still lives in comfort with her and Captain Flint. It is to be hoped so, I suppose, for his chances of comfort in another world are very small.

(Your headcanon is my headcanon, Jim. And this story is my headcanon for Mrs. Silver, at least until we find out whether or not a certain character in Black Sails will become her.)

Letting Silver get away with it at the end is about the most un-cliché-Victorian thing you can imagine, and I love Stevenson did this, which is why I was disappointed to learn a recent theatre production kills him off under a pile of gold. That's just wrong. Silver is the archetype from which all later fictional pirates derive, and the fact he stays free and alive, instead of being morally punished, that's just essential.

(BTW: in Peter Pan, Barrie, who loved Treasure Island, claims that Hook bested "Barbecue" - which is a nickname Silver has in the book which never quite made it into pop culture and the movies - and was feared by him, to which I say: pull the other one, James Barrie. Hook's far too emo to be a match for Long John.)

Not that Stevenson soft sells Silver as a villain, or makes him too smart. Silver, like everyone else, underestimates Ben Gunn. And the scene on the beach where Silver in no time flat kills two crewmen is chilling, and told as extensively as his showcases of bravery and cleverness, which is why Jim is in no doubt Silver would have killed him, too, if it became more convenient. The tension of distrust, unwilling admiration and lingering affection is what makes the relationship, and the first person narration ensures the readers are in the same position of Jim - they simply don't know whether or not he's right re: Silver.

In conclusion: still a highly enjoyable yarn, that book. Thank you, Mr. Stevenson, Sir.