Back

The first illustrations to Treasure Island

Richard J. Hill

There have been many posthumous illustrative treatments and cinematic adaptations of Stevenson’s most famous work, Treasure Island, from N.C. Wyeth’s famous illustrations in the 1930s, through to Walt Disney’s various adaptations (culminating in 2002’s Treasure Planet).  Stevenson was consciously writing popular fiction for a popular audience, which has been well documented by recent literary criticism.  However, a major part of popular literature is how it intersects with popular visual culture.  This was as true at the end of the nineteenth century as it is today.  Consequently, Stevenson was always interested in the illustration of his work, not only for the commercial benefits of increased circulation, but also for their artistic merit in entertaining his readers.  In fact, despite its current fame and enduring popularity, Treasure Island did not make Stevenson a household name.  As Roger Swearingen records, Young Folks actually received complaints about the story in its original form, presumably because of the violence with which Jim Hawkins is confronted, and unlike The Black Arrow (1883), it did nothing to raise the paper’s circulation.[1]

Unusually for a Young Folks story, Treasure Island only received one illustration, most likely because of Stevenson’s relative lack of fame.  Stevenson does not seem to have been concerned about this; he writes to Henley in September 1881, “The terms are £2, 10s. a page of 450 words; that’s not noble, is it?  But I have my copyright safe.  I don’t get illustrated—a blessing; that’s the price I have to pay for my copyright”.[2] Young Folks published Treasure Island in 17 weekly instalments from 1 October 1881 to 28 January 1882.  However, even before this publication, he was thinking about book publication.  He writes in the same letter: “I’ll make this boys’ book business pay; but I have to make a beginning.  When I’m done with Young Folks, I’ll try Routledge or some one.  I feel pretty sure the Sea Cook will do to reprint, and bring something decent at that”.[3] Two months later, in November 1881, he again writes to Henley, and expresses a desire for illustration for a book version of the story: “In five weeks, six at the latest, I should have a complete proof of Treasure Island.  It will be from 75 to 80,000 words; and with anything like half good pictures, it should sell.  I suppose I may at least hope for eight pic’s?  I aspire after ten or twelve.  You had better”.[4] The eventual publisher, of course, was Cassell and Company of London, who published the first book version of Treasure Island in 1883, but without illustration.

The first illustrated edition of Treasure Island, according to Swearingen, was actually published in America in mid-February, 1884 (Boston: Roberts Brothers), with four illustrations by the artist F. T. Merrill.  The first English illustrated edition was published in 1885, with a suite of illustrations by a French illustrator, Georges Roux (1850-1929).  At this point, the history of the illustrations becomes a little murky.  Swearingen records that this 1885 edition contained “twenty-one illustrations and an illustrated title page.  Two of these illustrations are from the American edition, the rest by various other illustrators”.[5] The confusion comes from an analysis of two early illustrated samples.  An 1885 first edition in the National Library of Scotland contains 25 plate illustrations, a title-page vignette, and an illustrated frontispiece; including the map, this makes 28 illustrations in total.  Here, three of Merrill’s pictures are reproduced, plus one unidentified picture opposite page 260.  The map must be attributed to Stevenson (although this is famously a later reproduction of the original map that was lost on its way to Cassell and Company).  The remaining 24 illustrations are all, as far as is discernable, designed by Roux.  Roux’s pictures all appear in a later imprint of this edition from 1889, with three of Merrill’s illustrations (figs. 9, 18 and 21), plus a closing vignette on p. 292 (fig. 28).  All the images in this catalogue are reproduced from this 1889 imprint, and the titles are taken from the “List of Illustrations” given at the beginning of the book.

Stevenson seems to have had mixed feelings about Roux’s illustrations.  In a letter of 28 October 1885, just before the release of the first illustrated edition, Stevenson writes to his father:

An illustrated Treasure Island will be out next month.  I have had an early copy, and the French pictures are admirable.  The artist has got his types up in Hogarth; he is full of fire and spirit, can draw and can compose, and has understood the book as I meant it, all but one or two little accidents, such as making the Hispaniola a brig.  I would send you my copy, but I cannot; it is my new toy, and I cannot divorce myself from this enjoyment.[6]

The “French pictures” referred to here are Roux’s.  He was clearly content with this illustrative treatment, on which he placed great importance; in 1887, Roberts Brothers threatened to publish another illustrated version with “disgusting” illustrations, and Stevenson wrote in desperation to Charles Scribner to obtain Roux’s illustrations from Cassell and Company.  However, he qualifies his praise of Roux by adding that “the French faces jar”.  In the end, the next American illustrated edition was published in 1902 by Scribners with illustrations by Walter Paget.[7] Appropriate illustrative interpretation was important to Stevenson.  This catalogue therefore represents a set of illustrations that the author himself found to be appropriate, albeit with misgivings, and should be viewed in this light.

Illustrations for The Black Arrow

The Black Arrow has an interesting publishing history, and holds an unusual place in Stevenson’s catalogue.  It first appeared as the follow-up syndicated story to Treasure Island in Young Folks in seventeen weekly instalments between 30 June and 20 October 1883.[i] This story, unlike Treasure Island, was heavily illustrated, perhaps a sign of Stevenson’s rising star as a popular author, although ironically it was this story that helped launch him to fame rather than its predecessor.  James Henderson, editor of Young Folks, had requested another story to follow Treasure Island, and Stevenson began writing in May 1883.  From the outset, he was not happy with his work, which he wrote through the fog of yet another illness; however, he did gradually come to see strengths in the work.  He wrote to Sidney Colvin in November 1883, after the end of publication, expressing his pride at his rendering of “Crookback”, and finishes his comments by remarking “It’s great sport to write tushery”.  [ii] This last comment has been interpreted as outright criticism of his story, but as is often the case with Stevenson’s self-criticism, it must be taken as ambiguous: critical certainly, but also self-deprecating about a work he came to appreciate.

In terms of its elevation to book form, nothing would happen with The Black Arrow for the next few years.  For the purposes of this study of book illustration, it is interesting to note that it was in America, rather than Britain, that the novel was not only first published but illustrated.  Communicating with Samuel McClure from Saranac Lake, on his way eventually to the Pacific, Stevenson arranged an American edition of The Black Arrow both as a syndicated serialisation in The Philadelphia Press, and subsequently as an illustrated book through Charles Scribner’s Sons in 1888.  This is poignant, given that the same was true for the illustrated book version of Treasure Island; it was in America, with the Roberts Brothers 1884 edition that Treasure Island was first illustrated in book form with four images by F. T. Merill.  A British version appeared the following year from Cassell and Company, but the illustrations were completed by a French artist, Georges Roux.  This may point to the fact that it was American publishers and readerships that were pushing, even innovating, in the illustrated novel at the end of the nineteenth century; British publishers, by contrast, seemed initially to resist the illustrated book form of Stevenson’s stories.  Cassell and Company published a book version of The Black Arrow in 1888, shortly after the appearance of Scribner’s Sons’ version, but it was not illustrated.  They produced an illustrated version finally in 1891, with illustrations by H. M. Paget, reproduced here.

Stevenson’s reaction to Merill’s illustrations to Treasure Island had been less than complimentary.  Writing to Charles Scribner from Saranac Lake in October 1887 about a new edition of Treasure Island, he advises, “Should you get Treasure Island, remember to sack the disgusting American illustrations; and get from Hetzel, Roux’s very spirited pictures…”.[iii] This comment may appear on the surface to be somewhat anti-American; however, as Stevenson moved ever further west and south in his travels, he still pushed for the illustration of his work, and Scribners was more than happy to oblige.  In the same letter quoted above, Stevenson mentions an American artist he much admired, writing that “Roux is really very spirited, though I wish I had known of [Howard] Pyle, for the French faces jar”.  Pyle was an illustrator for Scribners, who wrote and illustrated his own children’s books, a feat Stevenson aspired towards (although acknowledging his own limitations as an artist).  Another American artist he admired was his good friend William H. Low.  Having failed to convince the company to hire Pyle to illustrate both the book form and serialisation of The Black Arrow, McClure offered to serialise The Black Arrow under the title of “Outlaws of Tunstall Forest” in The Philadelphia Press from 25 March 1888, and had Low illustrate the story.  One of these illustrations appears as the frontispiece to the American edition (fig. BA-US-1); Stevenson appears to have held admiration for Low’s pictures.  Responding to praise for the serialised Black Arrow from the American journalist Talcott Williams, he writes, “I liked your kind praise; and the whole business—récalme, pictures and cut down story—is entertaining and novel”.[iv]

The remainder of the book illustrations are done by Alfred Brennan, another syndicated illustrator for Scribners who would incur Stevenson’s displeasure with illustrations to his final completed story “The Ebb-Tide”, for Jerome K. Jerome’s To-day periodical in 1894.  In the light of this criticism, it is therefore worth noting Stevenson’s uncharacteristic silence in his correspondence regarding Brennan’s illustrations for The Black Arrow.  This may be a coincidence of his travelling and various other distractions, but his silence may also be conceived as damning.  He is similarly silent on H. M. Paget’s pictures for the British edition.  Whatever his feelings on these images, he was bound through distance and nineteenth-century modes of communication to rely on artists and publishers miles away.  Stevenson was limited in his influence over the choice of illustrations and illustrators, given his geographic distance from his publishing centres.  This is a problem that would come back to haunt him with later publications; in the main, he had to trust to the tastes of his publishers, and the availability of certain illustrators, although he did make recommendations when he could.

The Black Arrow therefore received four illustrative treatments during his lifetime, two in Britain and two in America: in Young Folks, The Philadelphia Press, and in Charles Scribner’s Sons’ and Cassell and Company’s book editions.  The illustrations reproduced here are the book illustrations from the latter two versions.   It is interesting to note the contrast in styles of illustration, as Brennan’s illustrations bear close stylistic resemblance in to his American predecessor Merill’s for Treasure Island; Paget’s, by contrast, seem more akin to Roux’s pictures in their more naturalistic use of light and shade.  The American illustrations favour woodcut designs, where the British illustrations are photographic reproductions of paintings by the illustrators.  Stevenson seems to have been uncomfortable with the former design, which emphasises the drama through a stark linear style.  Illustrations for future American publications, of which Stevenson generally approved, reverted to Paget’s more painterly style, particularly those by William Hole for The Master of Ballantrae, and Gordon Browne for “The Beach of Falesa”.  The illustrations for all four versions of The Black Arrow cover all the various styles of illustration that Stevenson’s works were subsequently subject to, and demonstrate among other things the variety of pictorial possibilities that his prose opened up for potential illustrators.

Back