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Speaker 1: The Day in History Class is a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hello and welcome to this Day in History Class,

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Speaker 1: a show that charts a course through history one day

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Speaker 1: at a time. I'm Gabe Luzier, and today we're looking

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Speaker 1: at the story behind the story of Treasure Island, a

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Speaker 1: classic work of children's literature that helped establish pretty much

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Speaker 1: every pirate cliche you can think of. The day was

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Speaker 1: November eighteen eighty three, Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island was

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Speaker 1: published as a single volume book. The tale of swashbuckling

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Speaker 1: pirates and their hunt for buried treasure had first appeared

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Speaker 1: in a weekly literary magazine called Young Folks. The story

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Speaker 1: was published one chapter at a time over the course

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Speaker 1: of eighteen weekly installments between eighteen eighty one in eighteen

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Speaker 1: eighty two. That staggered format didn't do the story any favors,

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Speaker 1: with many young readers complaining it was too slow. However,

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Speaker 1: in book form, the Scottish author's vivid prose and morally

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Speaker 1: complex characters proved much easier to appreciate. Treasure Island quickly

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Speaker 1: became a best seller and is now considered one of

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Speaker 1: the defining works of the adventure genre. The story has

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Speaker 1: also left a lasting mark on popular culture, spawning countless

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Speaker 1: adaptations and imitations, and coloring the mainstream conception of pirates

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Speaker 1: for more than a century and counting. Treasure Island was

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Speaker 1: Stevenson's first great success as an author, and eventually became

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Speaker 1: one of his best loved books, right up there with

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Speaker 1: Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Kidnapped. It's a little surprising, then,

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Speaker 1: that the story only came about because of a reined

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Speaker 1: out family vacation. In the summer of eighteen eighty one,

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Speaker 1: the thirty one year old writer and his family went

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Speaker 1: on holiday in the Scottish Highlands. It was especially rainy

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Speaker 1: that season, and they were forced to spend much of

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Speaker 1: their time indoors. To keep from going stir crazy, Stevenson

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Speaker 1: borrowed some art supplies from his stepson and began painting

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Speaker 1: an island. He gradually turned the picture into a kind

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Speaker 1: of map, adding and naming the islands various harbors, hills

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Speaker 1: and bays. Then, captivated by his own illustration, Stevenson started

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Speaker 1: to imagine what kind of adventures might play out there.

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Speaker 1: The author later described that fit of inspiration, saying quote

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Speaker 1: as I paused upon my map of Treasure Island. The

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Speaker 1: future characters of the book began to appear there, visibly

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Speaker 1: among imaginary woods, and their brown faces and bright weapons

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Speaker 1: peeped out upon me from unexpected quarters as they passed

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Speaker 1: to and fro, fighting and hunting treasure on those few

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Speaker 1: square inches of a flat projection. The next thing I

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Speaker 1: knew I had some papers before me and was writing

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Speaker 1: out a list of chapters. Stevenson wrote ferociously at first,

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Speaker 1: finishing a new chapter every morning for about two weeks straight.

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Speaker 1: In the afternoons, he would share what he'd written with

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Speaker 1: his wife, Fanny and stepson Lloyd. Fanny wasn't a big fan,

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Speaker 1: but Lloyd was entranced by each chapter, and his positive

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Speaker 1: feedback kept Stevenson writing for as long as the rain

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Speaker 1: kept falling. Another family member key to the story's success

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Speaker 1: was the author's own father, Thomas Stevenson. He adored pirate

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Speaker 1: stories and gave his son a lot of useful advice

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Speaker 1: for how to tell his own that included everything from names,

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Speaker 1: to character traits to plot points. He even came up

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Speaker 1: with one of the book's most crucial scenes, the one

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Speaker 1: where Jim Hawkins hides in an apple barrel and overhears

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Speaker 1: Long John Silver's mutinous plans. Thomas left his mark on

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Speaker 1: Treasure Island in a literal sense as well. When the

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Speaker 1: story he was first released in book form, Stevenson's original

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Speaker 1: map was included along with the signature of fictional pirate

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Speaker 1: Captain Flint in reality, though the signature belonged to Thomas Stevenson.

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Speaker 1: In addition to made up pirates like Captain Flint, Stevenson

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Speaker 1: also included references to real life ones such as Blackbeard,

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Speaker 1: William Kidd and Bartholomew Roberts a k a. Black Bart

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Speaker 1: no relation to the stagecoach Robbert. But it was the

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Speaker 1: original character of Long John Silver who really stole the show.

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Speaker 1: The one Legged pirate was more nuanced and more compelling

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Speaker 1: than most adventure story villains. He was greedy and self serving,

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Speaker 1: no question, but also displayed a seemingly genuine affection for

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Speaker 1: Jim Hawkins, the young protagonist with whom he forms an

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Speaker 1: unlikely bond. Silver was such a pivotal character that Stevenson

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Speaker 1: initially named the book after him. The original title was

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Speaker 1: The Sea Cook, a reference to Silver's role as cook

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Speaker 1: on board the Hispaniola. The author's publisher later convinced him

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Speaker 1: to change the name, but it's still a testament to

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Speaker 1: Silver's importance to the story. After all, Treasure Island is

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Speaker 1: at its heart a coming of age tale, and Long

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Speaker 1: John Silver's friendship, deception, and ultimate betrayal play a formative

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Speaker 1: role in Jim hawkins Journey to self assurance. Although a

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Speaker 1: fictional character, Long John Silver did have a real world inspiration.

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Speaker 1: Stevenson based him on his longtime friend William Henley, who

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Speaker 1: was tall, talkative, and charming, just like Silver, and who

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Speaker 1: also had a wooden leg. Speaking of which, did you know?

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Speaker 1: It was Treasure Island that popularized the idea of pirates

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Speaker 1: having peg legs. There's no historical record of real pirates

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Speaker 1: using them, but the prosthetics appearance in books like Treasure

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Speaker 1: Island and Peter Pan cemented them as one of the

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Speaker 1: visual icons of piracy. It's a similar story for now

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Speaker 1: familiar tropes like pirates keeping parrot as pets or forcing

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Speaker 1: captured sailors to walk the plank. Both of those customs

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Speaker 1: had some historical precedents, but Treasure Island made them far

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Speaker 1: more prevalent in fiction than they were in real life.

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Speaker 1: In reality, monkeys where the exotic pet of choice among pirates,

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Speaker 1: and plank walking was a decidedly rare form of punishment,

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Speaker 1: a grizzly practice known as keel hauling was much more common,

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Speaker 1: but thankfully Stevenson left that part out of his book

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Speaker 1: so we don't have to talk about it. Another pirate

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Speaker 1: stereotype that owes more to fiction than fact is the

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Speaker 1: notion of buried treasure. Real pirates were much more interested

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Speaker 1: in spending their loot than they were in burying it,

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Speaker 1: and hard to remember locations. Nonetheless, in Treasure Island, long

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Speaker 1: John Silver is on the hunt for a stash of

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Speaker 1: gold hidden by his former captain, and of course a

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Speaker 1: secret treasure map is the key to finding it. And

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Speaker 1: while Robert Louis Stevenson didn't base that idea on real life,

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Speaker 1: he didn't invent it on his own either. Instead, he

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Speaker 1: borrowed it from another nineteenth century author, Edgar Allan Poe.

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Speaker 1: In post short story The Gold Bug, the main characters

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Speaker 1: hunt down Captain Kidd's treasure using a cipher that's based

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Speaker 1: on how frequently certain letters appear in the English language.

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Speaker 1: That's essentially the same premise as in Treasure Island. Except

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Speaker 1: Stevenson substituted a map in place of a cipher. He

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Speaker 1: admitted as much himself in the book's preface, saying, quote,

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Speaker 1: the map was the chief part of my plot, and

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Speaker 1: for that I broke into the gallery of Mr Poe.

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Speaker 1: Treasure Island didn't only fuel the modern view of how

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Speaker 1: pirates looked and behaved. It also influenced how we imagine

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Speaker 1: they spoke and sounded. That's because a lot of the

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Speaker 1: phrases we connect with pirates first appeared in Stevenson's book,

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Speaker 1: including Yo Ho ho and a bottle of rum and

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Speaker 1: shiver me timbers, a favorite expression of Long John Silver.

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Speaker 1: The sound of pirates was further defined by Walt Disney's

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Speaker 1: film version of Treasure Island, first released in nineteen fifty.

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Speaker 1: We now associate pirates with gruff, vaguely Scottish accents because

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Speaker 1: of actor Robert Newman's performance as Long John Silver. Newman

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Speaker 1: was a native of southwest England, and as such he

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Speaker 1: spoke with a distinctive regional dialect called West Country English.

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Speaker 1: Some features of that dialect line up exactly with how

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Speaker 1: most of us imagine pirates to have talked. For example,

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Speaker 1: West Country speakers tend to emphasize their rs, and they

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Speaker 1: also replace the verbs is and are with b, which

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Speaker 1: is a decidedly pirate move when ye be thinking about it. Still,

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Speaker 1: if that weren't enough, West Country speakers are also known

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Speaker 1: to use the word are in place of yes. Of course,

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Speaker 1: Robert Lewis Stevenson had no way of knowing the impact

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Speaker 1: his story would have on the modern conception of pirates.

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Speaker 1: In fact, he wasn't sure the public would care for

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Speaker 1: the book at all. When the publisher of Young Folks

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Speaker 1: magazine agreed to print it, Stevenson opted to use a

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Speaker 1: pen name, calling himself Captain George North. His reasoning was

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Speaker 1: never clearly stated, but the common assumption is that he

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Speaker 1: worried the story would be poorly received and might damage

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Speaker 1: his family's reputation, and for a time it looked like

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Speaker 1: Stevenson made the right call. Subscribers thought the story was

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Speaker 1: drawn out in a little boring, but to be fair,

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Speaker 1: most of them were young children reading just a few

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Speaker 1: pages a week. Once Treasure Island came out as a

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Speaker 1: full collected work in eight eighty three, the story found

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Speaker 1: a much wider and more patient audience. Of course, for

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Speaker 1: anyone who still finds the story a bit too dry.

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Speaker 1: There's always Disney's second big screen adaptation, a little film

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Speaker 1: called Muppet Treasure Island. It may not be entirely in

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Speaker 1: line with Stevenson's original vision, but it's hard to argue

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Speaker 1: with Tim Curry and a bunch of dancing puppets, Or

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Speaker 1: at least it is in my experienced that in the end,

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Speaker 1: I'm Gabe Louisier and hopefully you now know a little

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Speaker 1: more about history today than you did yesterday. If you

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Speaker 1: enjoy today's episode, consider keeping up with us on Twitter, Facebook,

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Speaker 1: and Instagram at t d i HC Show. You can

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Speaker 1: also rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts, or

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Speaker 1: you can reach out to me directly by writing to

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Speaker 1: This Day at I heart media dot com. Thanks to

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Speaker 1: Chandler Mays for producing the show, and thanks to you

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Speaker 1: for listening. I'll see you back here again tomorrow for

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Speaker 1: another day in History class. So