Going down the rabbit hole into "Treasure Island"

I’m not a philosopher. I couldn’t tell you the meaning of Life and I wouldn’t tell you how to live your life. But now and again I’m quite happy to pass on the odd lesson I’ve learned along the way. The lesson in question has an Alice connection too, namely some times you can learn things and find a lot of enjoyment if you’re willing to turn off the filters that make you oblivious to things that are not connected with the business of your daily life and follow an idea down a rabbit hole.

A couple of days ago I posted about Mervyn Peake’s work on the Alice books. In that post I mentioned in an aside that in my opinion he is the definitive illustrator of R.L. Stevenson’s “Treasure Island”. Now, “Treasure Island” is another of those books that I first read when I was little – maybe 7 or 8, and it’s another children’s classic that I absolutely love. My Nan bought me a Bancroft Classics edition. I don’t know if you remember Bancroft Classics. They were a cheap range of hardback reprints of classic children’s stories you used to be able to buy in Woolworths (remember Woolworths?). At around about the same time I saw a Disney live action film of the story and thought it was really exciting. For all that, I wouldn’t say that the story ever took the kind of hold of me that the Alice books did. You probably only get the reaction that I had to those books once in your life, and then only if you’re lucky.

I’ve recently retired from my career as an English teacher of children aged 11-16 after 38 years in the job. Decades ago, in the 90s, it was decided by the Government (blessed be the name of the Department for Education, or whatever it was called back then), who, in their infinite wisdom, decided that an English teacher’s job was not difficult enough and so decreed that as part of the National Curriculum every child in Key Stage 3 (ages 12 – 14) must study at least one 19^th century novel. So, as a department, we bought in sets of Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone and Treasure Island. Having a memory of enjoying it as a kid, I volunteered to create a scheme of work for Treasure Island. D’you know, I don’t think that I ever enjoyed making a scheme of work more. I loved the book all over again and I’ll be honest, I was really proud of the scheme of work that I made. We didn’t use it for very long, as government policy changed and sadly the sets of the books never really had a chance to wear out.

So, you get the point – I love the book. Not as much as Alice, but then that’s not a criticism. So, coming back to my post on Mervyn Peake, I said that for me he is the definitive illustrator of “Treasure Island”. This led me to asking the question – okay, but who else has illustrated it? I know that Ralph Steadman did, and I love his work on the book. But who else? And this is the rabbit hole that I mentioned at the start of this post. In another life – well, alright, back in the 1990s – I got quite heavily into quizzing. I was a wee bit of a natural at it, because if something interests me, then I want to know more about it, and I’ll dive down that rabbit hole until I’ve found out more. I think that for the majority of people we are so caught up in the business of our daily lives that we have a kind of in-built filter, blocking out the white noise of life around us so that we don’t tend to take notice of things which aren’t part of the business of our lives. These are the rabbit holes I mentioned. When I was younger and more insensitive, people would ask me ‘how do you know these things?’ and I’d reply – how do you not know these things? – which never really endeared me to anyone. Well, after I won the BBC’s Mastermind competition almost 20 years ago, I calmed down a bit and stopped trying so hard to impress people. I still kept going down rabbit holes of knowledge though.

So here’s what I found. I decided to start at the beginning. “Treasure Island” was first published as a serial story in the children’s magazine “Young Folks” between 1881 – 2. A year later it was published in book form by Cassell. According to sources on the internet, this 1883 edition was not illustrated. In February 1884 an American edition of the book was published with four illustrations by a artist called F.T. Merrill. The first illustrated English edition was actually illustrated by a French artist, Georges Roux. Although he complained that Roux depicted the Hispaniola as a brig, Stevenson seems to have been quite pleased with the Roux illustrations.

As he should have been. This is my copy of one of the 20 something illustrations that Roux produced.

1885 was at the start of the period known as the Golden Age of British Illustration. Yet this term really refers to the work of illustrators like Kate Greenaway, Arthur Rackham, and Paul Dulac, sumptuous and colourful illustrations, full of fantasy. Yet the Roux illustrations belong to an older tradition that we can trace back through illustrators like Hablot Browne (Phiz) and George Cruickshank as far as the great William Hogarth. And to me, this is far more appropriate for Treasure Island. It’s a style of illustration that I like very much.

I wouldn’t say that I’ve even scratched the surface of the history of the illustration of the novel, but I’m sure that I’m going to enjoy the journey. You ever know, I may even feel another challenge coming on.