Treasure Island question

I read somewhere that Virginia Woolf and her contemporaries really disparaged RLS and his reputation never really recovered.

As far as "tattered remains of a once loved books" being uncool, the best way to get kids to read classics is by getting them an eReader. So many classic books are available from Amazon or Project Gutenberg for free. Plus, there's literally no cover to judge.

His nonfiction is wonderful too. I was pulled back to him by the Amateur Immigrant.

I think RLS HAS had the credit he deserved...he's had bank notes made in his honour and a room dedicated to him in a museum. However, I'd suggest that, like Walter Scott, his style and subject of writing aren't as popular any more, therefore his popularity limited in the 2010s.

Kudos to you, Jimmy for reading Treasure Island in the 2nd grade. I read it the first time in the 5th grade and didn't really ingest it. It wasn't until I read it last year for research for my own books that I really enjoyed it. It's an excellent story for all ages.

I just downloaded an anthology of all RLS works from Amazon for $0.99. Lots and lots of entertainment there! The Kindle reader said 206 hrs to read. The illustrations are exceptional too. Some of them appear to be Wyeths.

I just listened to an audio version of Treasure Island. Awesome story, and definitely too violent to be classified as a "children's book." And therein lies the problem: TI is an adult adventure classic.

Hello, I've just read most of RLS's books over the last two years, some of them on my Kindle when I walked from Canterbury to Iona in 2014. I think RLS would have approved of this journey. I've also regularly sung Vaughan-Williams's settings of "Songs of Travel", so he's a writer who has accompanied me throughout my life.

I think he is truly great writer and my esteem continued to rise as I walked and as I reacquainted myself with Treasure Island, Kidnapped and The Black Arrow and his adult fiction, some of which I hadn't previously read or been aware of. His story telling, vivid characterisation of person and place, the wonderfully evocative dialogue (truly brilliant) and the variety of his subject matter. He was a master, and it's a great shame he died at a relatively young age - I'm sure there was a great deal more in him that we never got to read.

I think part of the problem now days is far too many people have lost their sense of adventure and the innocence of the age in which many of his books were written, which I find a shame.

Personally, I would rather read a RLS book for the sheer fun, adventure and stylistic writing and storytelling over much of the horrid stuff published now days.

What others have said about Stevenson matters little to me. I know my feelings about his work. I first read Treasure Island as a very young child, and the experience got me totally hooked on reading and writing. I still read Treasure Island once a year, and I'm always captivated by Stevenson's story-telling abilities.

I don't give a toss what the Bloomsbury Group thought of RLS. I believe RLS is credited as a great Scottish/British writer.

Treasure Island and Kidnapped are brilliant. They were written purely with boys in mind (note the absence of women - except Mrs Long John Silver, and Jim Hawkin's mother).

He's a brilliant writer of prose and poetry.

His The Body-Snatchers is a brilliant short story.

Interestingly, it's only within the English-speaking tradition that Stevenson is so underrated. Other literary cultures I know (Italian, Hispanic) place him squarely within the canon. Writers like Borges and Sciascia revered him.

I think the superficial reason for Stevenson's lesser reputation in the Anglophone world is that he is perceived as a children’s writer, and that many people first encounter him as children, in abridged versions. But the reason why he came to be seen in that way in the first place lies in early twentieth-century literary history; as this page on the RLS website well documents http://www.robert-louis-stevenson.org..., Stevenson became the target of systematic disparagement in the early twentieth century by influential writers like Virginia Woolf and E.M. Forster, for whom he represented all they loathed about late-Victorian fiction. The Stevenson they described was a complete straw man, but this campaign of deprecation drove Stevenson out of the mainstream literary canon in the English-speaking world for most of the twentieth century.

Academic criticism of the past couple of decades has begun to rehabilitate Stevenson, and he is now seen as an important precursor of postmodernism (Borges’s liking for him was a bit of a clue in that regard). This critical reevaluation will eventually, I imagine, reshape popular perceptions of him and he will begin to be seen as the great writer he is.

I totally agree! He is brilliant. I read a great bio about him a few years ago that stated due to his immense popularity his contemporaries got a little bitter. Many authors discredited his writing and his lifestyle. His work contributes so much to our literary and pop culture, he deserves his accolades and much more.

Certain books invent and define a particular genre in such a way that nothing afterward can be written that does not, in some way, draw on that book. Such a work is Treasure Island. It defines "Pirate" and "the hidden treasure" story in such a way that everything since is just copying. Every kid and adult who loves the pirate genre should read it at least once.

The sad thing is that Treasure Island is no longer required reading in many schools. All that remains in their librarys are the tattered remains of a once loved book. My own grandchildren shun my urgings to give it a read, as if doing so would plunge them to the depths of uncoolness and to forever more be forced to lunch at the geek table.

Edinburgh (where else?) recently celebrated RLS Day.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland...

I have a little on my website about great beginnings to books...Treasure Island is one of them. www.kenpelham.com, if you're interested. Scroll to the bottom and open the "previous entries" tab.

I've noticed that if a book grips you in the first sentence and has stolen your brain by page two, people say it's a child's book or it's science fiction. All my english teachers were adamant that the books I read be filled with flowered description--mostly unnecessary. I'm not saying that "The Snows of Kilimanjaro", "The Grapes of Wrath", and "One day in the life of Ivan Denesovitch" aren't extremely valuable gifts to the ages, but not a one of them is easy to read or live with afterward. Robert Louis Stevenson had music in the way he put words to paper. It made reading it fun from the very first word.

Because people do not tend to focus on his best works of fiction. The Ebb-Tide, The Wrong Box and The Master of Ballantrae are obscure but pure genius!

I think most people view him as a childrens writer due to the films.

I agree that Robert Louis Stevenson deserves more attention. His writing is beautiful. Just three examples: the incisive portrait of a difficult father/son relationship at the start of 'Weir of Hermiston'; the combination of laugh-out loud humour and vivid descriptions of weather and landscape in 'The Silverado Squatters', and the gripping can't-put-it-down plotting of 'Treasure Island'. A great writer.

I don't know about movies. There was recently some german movie producer who gave it another try, added a character (some woman) and made Jim Hawkins appear to be some kind of pervert. All in all, it was pathetic.

I just did a review of a volume of his collected works and used J.M. Barrie's admiring quote about Stevenson. He really was a treasure, nothing lightweight about him at all.

As a kid, I loved "Muppet Treasure Island." As I got older, I realized how dumb that movie was and totally shunned the book. When I did finally read "Treasure Island" I was completely surprised at what an awesome piece of literature it is. I am so surprised that adolescent boys aren't all over it; it is so fun and such a good tale that I agree that Stevenson is totally underappreciated.

I don't know... I really enjoyed Treasure Island, though. Interesting book!

He wrote primarily for children [of all ages] and writers of childrens' books never get full recognition. my favourite is 'Kidnapped'.

I think he would have been more revered if he had lived longer and written more over the course of that longer life. Blame the patent medicine that killed him (had toxic poison in it).

I haven't read them since I was a kid, but aren't they mostly just adventure tales, perhaps well written, but overshadowed by a bit weightier-themed classics like Robinson Crusoe and The Count of Monte Cristo (neither of which I've read yet)? Jeckyl and Hyde is good, too, but perhaps not as complex or rich, or intellectually or emotionally resonant, as some other classics. I'd guess that the characters are fairly simple, too, when compared.

RLS rocks.IMO most people are attracted to new,shiny things and ignore old,dusty things. I like both.