This correspondent had paid his visit as proposed, discussed the Thoreau differences, listened delightedly to the first chapters of Treasure Island, and proposed to offer the story for publication to his friend Mr. Henderson, proprietor and editor of Young Folks.
[Braemar, September 1881.]
MY DEAR DR. JAPP,—My father has gone, but I think I may take it upon me to ask you to keep the book. Of all things you could do to endear yourself to me, you have done the best, for my father and you have taken a fancy to each other.
I do not know how to thank you for all your kind trouble in the matter of The Sea Cook, but I am not unmindful. My health is still poorly, and I have added intercostal rheumatism—a new attraction—which sewed me up nearly double for two days, and still gives me a list to starboard—let us be ever nautical!
I do not think with the start I have there will be any difficulty in letting Mr. Henderson go ahead whenever he likes. I will write my story up to its legitimate conclusion; and then we shall be in a position to judge whether a sequel would be desirable, and I would then myself know better about its practicability from the story-teller’s point of view.—Yours ever very sincerely,
R. L. Stevenson.
To W. E. Henley
This tells of the farther progress of Treasure Island, of the price paid for it, and of the modest hopes with which it was launched. “The poet” is Mr. Gosse. The project of a highway story, Jerry Abershaw, remained a favourite one with Stevenson until it was superseded three or four years later by another, that of the Great North Road, which in its turn had to be abandoned, from lack of health and leisure, after some six or eight chapters had been written.
Braemar, September 1881.
MY DEAR HENLEY,—Thanks for your last. The £100 fell through, or dwindled at least into somewhere about £30. However, that I’ve taken as a mouthful, so you may look out for The Sea Cook, or Treasure Island: A Tale of the Buccaneers, in Young Folks. (The terms are £2, 10s. a page of 4500 words; that’s not noble, is it? But I have my copyright safe. I don’t get illustrated—a blessing; that’s the price I have to pay for my copyright.)