EXTRACTS: Pirates! Illustrators Special Edition © 2020 The Book Palace (128 PAGES in Full edition)

59 Company) contained no illustrations at all. He had better luck, however, with the first American illustrated edition published by Roberts Brothers of Boston in 1884, with illustrations by F. T. Merrill, and the first English illustrated edition published a year later with illustrations by French artist, Georges Roux. For the most part, Stevenson seemed to have approved of these illustrations with only a few criticisms regarding some of Roux’s images, such as the ‘Hispaniola’ being wrongly drawn as a brig and stating that the “French faces jar”. As many of the book’s illustrators have pointed out, the pictures were all there in the text just asking them to be put into visual form. Within just a few pages Stevenson sets the tone of the whole story and, indeed, the elements of all the pirate tales to follow, as well as the look of the buccaneers themselves. The first pirate we meet, Billy Bones, is vividly described as “a tall, strong, heavy, nut- brown man …the sabre cut across one cheek, a dirty, livid white”. Despite Stevenson’s highly descriptive prose, however, it was not until after his death that Text continues on page 64 FACING PAGE: Captain Bill Bones , oil on canvas by N. C. Wyeth, 1911. BELOW: Treasure Island comic strip, pen and ink on paper by Cecil Langley Doughty. This ‘Treasure Island’ adaptation appeared in 1977 for Look and Learn .