I have
always had a fascination with Pirates. The Golden Age of Piracy occurred
from about 1680 to 1730…give or take a few years. It was centered mainly
in the Caribbean and on the east coast of what is now the United States, but in
truth and reality, it was a worldwide phenomenon…encompassing every latitude
and longitude from the China Sea to the Mediterranean. Although the story
of Treasure Island takes place somewhere in the 1740’s or
1750’s, well beyond the “Golden Age” and the days of Blackbeard and Kidd (Treasure
Island never reveals a hard date), it still has the feel of a
swashbuckling adventure and the book feels like it leaped out of
Disneyland’s Pirates of the Caribbean ride...
Originally
published by Robert Louis Stevenson as a magazine serial between 1881 and
1882, Treasure Island was first published as a book in
1883. Known predominantly as a children’s story, Treasure
Island, has its roots in very adult themes and actually reads like an adult
novel. Many influences contributed to Stevenson’s masterwork,
but A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious
Pyrates, which Stevenson read shortly before writing the book, was the
final push that encouraged the creation of this classic.
It has
been theorized that the 1750 heist of Spanish silver from the galleon Nuestra
Señora de Guadalupe in North Carolina’s Ocracoke Inlet, the treasure
and manhunt that followed, and the mystery of where that stolen treasure ended
up, was a major influence on Stevenson’s story. The brothers Owen
and John Lloyd were the principle architects of a theft that netted eight tons
of Spanish silver from the hold of the Guadalupe. His brother John
(who had peg-leg, much like Long John Silver), was captured early on and didn’t
get his portion of the loot, so Owen, and his other accomplices, ended up with
the whole “nine yards” so to speak. Nobody really knows where Owen
Lloyd buried, or spent, the treasure. After Owen was captured, much
of the loot was never recovered. It’s possible that Owen drifted
back to Great Britain...there is some evidence that shows he did…and this is where
the connection with Stevenson and Treasure Island begins…
As a
boy, Robert might well have heard stories about the Lloyd brothers and their
fantastically rich, “piratical” haul. There is some speculation that
the family knew Owen Lloyd after he supposedly returned home. Did
the seed for the story get planted when Stevenson was a boy? Did he
write his childhood remembrances into one the most famous pirate stories of all
time? Even though it's conjecture, it still makes for an interesting
historical question, and perhaps gives us some small insight historical basis
for Treasure Island…and Long John Silver did have a wooden leg…
If you
want to read a first edition copy of the book:
Sometimes,
photographic scans of original books contain flaws…such as missing text due to
a printing mistake in the original volume. This particular first
edition copy has some missing text. You can fill it in with a
digital copy from Project Gutenberg:
For more
information regarding the Lloyds, the Spanish galleon Guadalupe,
the silver, Stevenson and the story…Treasure Island: The Untold Story by
John Amrhein, is available from Amazon...