Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Richard Middleton

Critical Essay by Richard Middleton

SOURCE: "Treasure Island as a Book for Boys," in The Living Age, Vol. CCLXXI, No. 3512, October 28, 1911, pp. 249-51.

In the following essay, Middleton attributes the unpopularity of the first publication of Treasure Island to the presence of human flaws in Stevenson's charac ters—a literary quality "at variance with juvenile conceptions of adventure."

Film and Television Adaptations

Treasure Island (silent film, 1912). Released by Edison.Director: J. Searle Dawley.

Treasure Island (1920). Released by Paramount Pictures. Director: Maurice Tourneur.

Treasure Island (1934). Producer: MGM/Hunt Stromberg. Director: Victor Fleming. Cast: Wallace Beery, Jackie Cooper, Lionel Barrymore, Otto Kruger, Lewis Stone, Nigel Bruce, Douglas Dumbrille.

Treasure Island (1950). Producer: Walt Disney. Director: Byron Haskin. Cast: Robert Newton, Bobby Driscoll, Basil Sidney, Finlay Currie, Geoffrey Wilkinson, Denis O'Dea, Walter Fitzgerald, Ralph Truman.

"Treasure Island" (television broadcast, 1960). Producer: David Susskind. Director: Daniel Petrie. Cast: Hugh Griffith, Max Adrian, Michael Gough, Boris Karloff, Barry Morse, Richard O'Sullivan....
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