SOURCE: "Mirror in the Sea: Treasure Island and the Internalization of Juvenile Romance," in Children's Literature Association Quarterly, Vol. 8, No. 3, Fall, 1983, pp. 7-12.

In the following essay, Blackburn considers Treasure Island in the context of the evolution of the literature of romance and adventure "from fiction in which incident is more important than character to fiction in which precisely the reverse is true."

The adventure story is one of the hardiest of all literary genres—and it has often had need to be so. Ever since Gilgamesh (third millennium B.C.) "saw mysteries and knew secret things. . . . went on a long journey, was weary, worn-out with labor, and returning, engraved on a stone that whole story," tales of man's journeys into the unknown have held an audience—and have done so in triumphant defiance of the common limitations of their authors, the frequent ignorance of their audience, and...