Treasure Island — MinaLima edition brings Stevenson’s adventure to life

Review by C.J. Bunce

Scottish novelist Robert Louis Stevenson is one of those authors still known today in many ways, mainly from books we call classics: Treasure Island (1883), Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Kidnapped (both 1886), and the book of poems A Child’s Garden of Verses (1885). The fact a restaurant bears the name of Treasure Island’s key antagonist 143 years after the character was created is simply impressive and speaks to the appeal of peg-legged Long John Silver and endless attraction of pirate lore for the young and the old, lore that has never been captured better than in this action-adventure rollercoaster ride. Who hasn’t seen one or more adaptations of Treasure Island? Oddly enough most kids in more recent years probably read an abridged schoolbook version of the original 292-page book, first titled the less impressive The Sea Cook: A Story for Boys.

Luckily British design artist Miraphora Mina and Brazilian design artist Eduardo Lima, the duo known as MinaLima, have selected Treasure Island as the next classic work to be memorialized with their gorgeous design and artistry. Treasure Island, illustrated in 384 pages by MinaLima, is now available here at Amazon from Harper books. The hardcover book features the interactive elements its library of books are known for, but it’s their extensive, evocative interior artwork that makes this the duo’s best installment yet. Why read this edition over any other? Read just one of the books in the MinaLima library and you’ll be hooked. As a new adaptation finds its way to MGM+, what better time to read this seafaring journey again or for the first time?

The story follows young Jim Hawkins, whose innkeeper father is dying, when a strange guest ends up a dead guest, leaving a chest in his room. And in that chest at the Admiral Benbow inn near Bristol is a map. Upon his father’s death Jim takes up with his father’s doctor and another man who drop everything to pull together a ship, the Hispaniola, and a crew assembled in part by a third man–that’s the eager to please cook with one leg who they call Long John Silver. Treasure Island? Treasure map? In fact this tale has in common with nautical tales from much later, the likes of William Golding’s To the Ends of the Earth, C.S. Forester’s Hornblower, and Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin novels. The treasure is more the carrot, the MacGuffin of the novel-writing craft that can compel a reader in the 2020s to devour the entire book in less than 24 hours.

Jim Hawkins’ journey has the feel of Tom’s from a few years earlier in Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The stakes are similar–life and death–but the risk is greater and the moments of peril are for more dire with Stevenson’s young hero. And the appeal of leaving home aboard a ship, be it steam ship or clipper, is equally timeless. Silver’s personality has much in common with the scheming Fagin of Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist from more 45 years prior. Silver feigns familiarity and collegiality as part of his finagling. He’s adept at finding as his mark the young, and his similar success with older and addled “maroons” as Stevenson calls them, who Silver doesn’t merely attract but seeks out as his loyalists. The adventure itself is inspired by historical stories and sea lore as well as Sir Walter Scott’s much earlier adventure novels, and in fact Treasure Island is set in the 18th century of many Scott tales.

As with Dickens stories, readers will find the characters are memorable. Years later you may still recount the stalwart Captain Smollett, the unflinching doctor Livesey, the eager Squire Trelawney. And those names! Some of the best are attached to more minor characters, like Billy Bones, Black Dog, and the unparalleled Ben Gunn, a quirky surprise entry that you can find adapted into adventure stories more than a century later, like Sirius Black and Remus Lupin in the Harry Potter novels. The best name may be reserved for Silver’s alarming and useful parrot pal, Captain Flint.

Readers should keep an eye out for parallels in Stevenson’s writing, like the giddy reaction to the treasure map by the upper class doctor and squire early in the story, and the similar squeals by Silver’s ramshackle remnant gang when the map falls in their laps toward the end. Compare Treasure Island to Stevenson’s later novel Kidnapped (reviewed here at borg) and you’ll see how the author enjoyed playing with both young coming of age heroes (each only child of his parents, like Stevenson) and the realities of adults not being as they seem, telling lies and the like. Treasure Island isn’t autobiographical, reflecting the imagination of Stevenson as a writer of the fantastical. But the tale is steeped in the historical and his knowledge of sailing is a pristine as any writer before or since.

What may surprise modern readers is how accessible the novel is, how the dialogue is completely unmuddled by any extraneous prose or relics of earlier authors. It’s not dated at all, a better read than something like an action-heavy Tom Clancy novel because it doesn’t get bogged down in technology or technobabble and instead races along at a fast clip.

MinaLima takes their shot here at establishing for a new generation of readers the looks of each of the main characters, with colorful accompanying imagery sharing half or full pages with Stevenson’s text, reprinted in a very clear and readable classic book font. If Tim Curry is stuck in your head as the definitive Long John Silver from Muppet Treasure Island, you may not be able to get him out of your head as you read the colorful dialogue, which alludes to more profane language excluded for his intended younger audience by Stevenson. On the heels of watching the TV series The Artful Dodger, I also saw David Thewlis as Silver in my own imagination as I read along. MinaLima’s vision looks more like Billy Connolly, another good choice. Is Silver really a treacherous villain, or that mentor and friend Jim Hawkins hopes him to be? Despite your memory of earlier reads or TV or film adaptations, I think you’ll see the true character as invisioned by Stevenson is far more the latter. And maybe for Jim you’ll see a young Wil Wheaton or Sean Astin from The Goonies, also a movie with many references back to Stevenson’s story.

In addition to the gorgeous cover art, sturdy binding, endpaper designs, and interior artwork, readers also come to MinaLima for the interactive or 3D “pop-up” elements. MinaLima’s Frankenstein, reviewed recently here at borg, was perfect for this concept because of the numerous letters in Mary Shelley’s novel. But you know that treasure map is coming as you get closer to the page where the map is tipped in. And it’s just as Stevenson must have imagined it, complete with a skeleton as a warning and cleverly twice folded. It pulls out and easily, practically snaps back into place. Another element shows the crew manifest, another the ship flag turned by Silver into the Jolly Roger. Another, like a shiny fine greeting card, shows Jim battling the sea. There’s a steerable captain’s wheel, the skeleton of a dead buccaneer pointing to treasure ahead, and a surprise for the last folded element.

MinaLima is the design studio combining the imaginations of two artists that gained notoriety for creating the entire ten-year run of graphic art and graphic props for the Harry Potter film series. British design artist Miraphora Mina and Brazilian design artist Eduardo Lima also provided imagery for The Golden Compass, Sweeney Todd, and The Imitation Game.

A stunning presentation of Treasure Island from MinaLima and Harper, order it now for yourself or your favorite fan of adventure, action, Pirates of the Caribbean, or historical tales, it’s available now here at Amazon. Then dig further and check out our review of Stevenson’s Kidnapped here.