I was thinking about the Treasure Island Movies being filmed and I thought I would provide some links to Robert Louis Stevenson's books to read. If you want to download, or read the book online here is a link for the Internet Archive and the from Project Gutenberg. The version I linked to from the internet archive is illustrated by Louis Rhead and has some interesting illustrations.
The initial catalyst for the story was an island map that Stevenson and his stepson drew while on holiday in the Scottish Highlands.
The first page of the book contains the lines for a ditty.
"Fifteen men on the dead man's chest— Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!"
Stevenson intended the rhyme as a forewarning of the events in his tale.It was expanded in a poem years later, titled Derelict by Young E. Allison. Here's the music of "15 Men On a Dead Man's Chest."
So, I got to thinking about the new Treasure Island movies I mentioned a few days ago. I couldn't help thinking about the Muppet Treasure Island and the "Shiver My Timbers song."
"Shiver my timbers" was most famously popularized by the pirate Long John Silver in Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island (1883). Silver used the phrase seven times, as well as variations such as "shiver my sides", "shiver my soul" and "shake up your timbers".
According to Wikipedia, the phrase is based on real nautical slang and is a reference to the timbers, which are the wooden support frames of a ship. "In heavy seas, ships would be lifted up and pounded down so hard as to "shiver" the timbers, startling the sailors. Such an exclamation was meant to convey a feeling of fear and awe, similar to, "Well Blow Me Down!", or, "May God Strike Me Dead". Shiver is also reminiscent of the splintering of a ship's timbers in battle - splinter wounds were a common form of battle injury on wooden ships ('shiver' means splinter in some English dialects)."
The influence of the famed Robert Louis Stevenson novel, "Treasure Island" on the perception of pirates is vast, including treasure maps with an "X", schooners, the BLack Spot, tropical islands, and one-legged seamen with parrots. Most of these are pure fiction, but enjoyable fiction compared to the facts about pirates.
Ecosse Films is adapting a new version of "Treasure Island" and now it seems that a different project on the same topic has found a new competitor on the high seas. Pajiba is reporting that Lionel Wigram (Sherlock Holmes) is developing a competing Treasure Island project at Warner Bros.
Why not? Everyone wants to cash in on the success of Pirates similar to DIsney's Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.
The Golden Age of Piracy is a common designation given to periods of piracy from the 1650's to the 1720's. The manner in which pirates are depicted in popular culture is derived largely, though not always accurately, from the Golden Age of Piracy. Although some of the details are often misremembered, the effect upon popular culture of the Golden Age of Piracy is vast. Let's talk about it.
