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PIRATE PREQUEL MAY BE TOO SEXY FOR STEVENSON’S FANS

Robert Louis Stevenson

Monday June 30,2008

By David Scott

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A Controversial prequel to Scots author Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island is to hit the book shelves this week.

Unlike the original children’s classic John Drake’s Flint And Silver is a contemporary twist on the pirate tale aimed at a purely adult audience.

Billed as containing “sex, violence and swashbuckling adventure”, it has several new characters and recounts the rivalry between Captain Flint and Long John Silver.

Stevenson was 30 when he started Treasure Island, and it became his first success as a novelist. The first 15 chapters were written at Braemar, in the Highlands, in 1881.

The story was serialised in the children’s magazine Young Folks between 1881 and 1882 under the title, The Sea Cook, although it failed to make much of an impact. It was not until it was published as a book in 1883 that it took off.

Former biochemist and TV producer Mr Drake has spent years studying the original line by line, together with books and essays on 18th-century shipping and piracy.

I’m never going to reveal the location of the island

John Drake

The author yesterday said he rekindled his own childhood love of the book when he became a full-time author nine years ago. “Recently, when I was able to become a full-time writer, I re-read the book and realised Treasure Island reads like a sequel.

“It’s full of questions. Such as: Where did Long John get the parrot? Who was the black woman he married and who is referred to disparagingly in the book? I don’t write books without women. So my books are not for children.”

Experts have long tried to find the island in the original book and candidates have ranged from Unst in the Shetlands to Norman Island in the British Virgins.

Mr Drake added: “I’m never going to reveal the location of the island. But there’s a lot of information in the original book, so if you read it carefully you can take a pretty good guess.”