Page:The Story of the House of Cassell (book).djvu/251

 proprietor." There seems to be no doubt, therefore, that the title "Treasure Island" was Mr. Henderson's choice, but it does not follow, of course, that it was his invention.

How Stevenson came to write "Treasure Island" he has himself related. In a letter to Henley, written in August, 1881, he says: "I am now on another lay for the moment, purely owing to Lloyd, this one; now see here, 'The Sea Cook, or Treasure Island: A Story for Boys.' If this don't fetch the kids, why, they have gone rotten since my day." Then follows an outline of what he proposes for plot and the names of his characters, and the letter proceeds: "Two chapters have been written and tried on Lloyd with great success.... No women in the story, Lloyd's orders; and who so blithe to obey? It's awful fun, boys' stories; you just indulge the pleasure of your heart, that's all; no trouble, no strain."

In the Idler, in 1894, Stevenson describes the actual beginning of the writing and the pleasure the story yielded to him and his father:

"At Castleton of Braemar, on a chill August morning, by the cheer of a brisk fire, and the rain drumming on the window, I began 'The Sea Cook,' for that was the original title. Day by day, after lunch, I read aloud my morning's work to the family. It seemed to me original as sin; it seemed to belong to me like my right eye. I had counted on one boy; I found I had two in my audience. My father caught fire at once with all the romance and childishness of his original nature. His own stories that every night of his life he put himself to sleep with dealt perpetually with ships, roadside inns, robbers, old sailors, and commercial travellers before the era of steam. He never finished one of these romances; the lucky man did not require to! But in 'Treasure Island' he recognized something kindred to his own imagination; it was his kind of picturesque: and he not only heard with delight the daily chapter, but set himself acting to collaborate. When the time came for Billy Bones's chest to be ransacked, he must have passed the better part of a day preparing, on the back of an envelope, an inventory of its contents, which I exactly followed; and the name