DERELICT
“I am now on another lay for the moment, purely owing to Lloyd, this one,” wrote R. L. S. to Henley in August, 1881; “now, see here, ‘The Sea-Cook, or Treasure Island: A Story for Boys.’
“If this doesn’t fetch the kids, why, they have gone rotten since my day. Will you be surprised to learn it is about Buccaneers… and a map, and a treasure, and a mutiny, and a derelict ship, and a sea-cook with one leg, and a sea-song with the chorus, ‘Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum’ (at the last Ho you heave at the capstan bars), which is a real buccaneer’s song, only known to the crew of the late Captain Flint.”
And three years later, when the book was fetching not only the kids but their elders too, and R. L. S. was getting his first real taste of success, he wrote to Sidney Colvin, “Treasure Island came out of Kingsley’s ‘At Last,’ where I got the Dead Man’s Chest—and that was the seed.”
“At Last” is an uninspired account of a trip to the West Indies and the only reference to the Dead Man’s Chest is in the first chapter. “We
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