Historical Context
Robert Louis
Stevenson began Treasure Island in 1881, while recovering from
tuberculosis in Braemar, Scotland. It was Stevenson's first novel. The story
originated in a treasure map Stevenson drew with his 12-year-old stepson Lloyd,
but the map quickly grew into a full-blown world. Treasure Island first
appeared in installments from 1881 to 1882 in a children's magazine titled Young
Folks, but it was not very successful. Treasure Island met with much
greater success after Stevenson revised and published it as a novel for adults
in 1883.
Treasure
Island is not a historical novel, but a romantic adventure story. The
location of the island is never given, although it is probably somewhere off the
South American coast. Stevenson also does not specify the year in which the
events of the story take place, but Jim Hawkins, a grown man when he narrates
the book, says at the beginning that he is writing "in the year of grace
17--". It is likely that Stevenson was imagining the first half of the 18th
century when he wrote Treasure Island, because this era was the golden
age of British piracy. Thousands of pirate crews, including such colorful and
notorious figures as Captain Kidd and Blackbeard, roamed the Atlantic,
Caribbean, and Indian Oceans in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Piracy
was a major threat to a nation like Great Britain, whose political and economic
power was built on its shipping industry. It was not until the 1720's and 30's
that the British navy was large and powerful enough to reduce significantly the
number of pirates preying on merchant vessels.
By the late
19th century, the golden age of piracy was a distant memory. Tales of
swashbuckling pirates provided a romantic escape for readers in the rapidly
industrializing Britain of the 1880's, where steamships were replacing the
sail-powered ships of an earlier era. Victorian children’s books were written
as moral lessons first, and entertaining stories second, if at all. While Treasure
Island does have a moral purpose – Jim Hawkins learns about
responsibility, courage, and his own resourcefulness – Stevenson was mostly
interested in writing an exciting adventure tale. The success of Treasure
Island introduced fantasy and adventure into the dull world of Victorian
children’s literature, and helped inspire other classics such as J.M.
Barrie’s Peter Pan (1904). Stevenson's reputation has sometimes
suffered because his best-known work was written for children, but he was highly
respected in his lifetime by such important writers as Henry James, and
continues to fascinate readers of all ages today.
