TREASURE ISLAND

By Robert Louis Stevenson
1883

First printing of this beloved tale of pirates and treasure maps, the touchstone for the modern concept of the peg-legged pirate with unexpected depth of character.

Very good.

"Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!"

With numerous film, TV, and theater adaptations that cast everyone from Orson Welles to Tim Curry and the Muppets as Long John Silver and company, the cultural reach of TREASURE ISLAND is extremely broad. Robert Louis Stevenson penned what would become his breakout success while recovering from one of his many illnesses, and it originally appeared serially in YOUNG FOLKS magazine. William Francis Prideaux observes that TREASURE ISLAND was "a comparative failure" in its serial form, and only found success when it was published as a complete work (27).
Prideaux notes that TREASURE ISLAND was first issued in several different colors of cloth with no priority, however the first print run of 2000 copies was split into groups issued over a few months at the end of 1883. The ads of this copy mark it as one of the last bindings in the first printing.

Read more: Prideaux, A Bibliography of the Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, 11; McKay, A Stevenson library: a catalogue of a collection of writings by and about Robert Louis Stevenson formed by Edwin J. Beinecke, 241.

London: Cassell & Company, Limited, 1883. 7.5'' x 4.75''. Original sage green cloth binding with gilt lettering to spine. Black coated endpapers, uncut edges. Color cartographic frontispiece with tissue guard. "Dead Man's Chest" not capitalized on pp. 2 and 7; "7" on page 127 stamped in and rear ads dated "5R-10.83" (first edition, first printing, 2/3/4 binding; ref. McKay 241). 292, [8] pages. Housed in custom green cloth clamshell with gilt spine lettering. Faded ownership inscription to half-title page, dated October 30 1883; "first edition" in faint blue ink to verso of front fly leaf. Hinges expertly repaired. Binding with light bumping to corners and spine ends, a bit of faint soiling; a touch of toning to spine. Leaves with occasional soiling to margins, barely visible repair to corner of rear flyleaf. Firm and clean.

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