Maybe so.
Although the Daily Mail gets the facts wrong pretty quickly:
It's a twist worthy of any great adventure story – Long John Silver was based on a Welsh adventurer in the West Indies, researchers claim.
They say that Robert Louis Stevenson modelled his classic novel Treasure Island on the lives of Owen and John Lloyd, brothers born in the town of Rhuddlan, North Wales.
Owen is believed to have sailed to the West Indies and went on to bury 52 chests of Spanish silver pieces of eight on the deserted Norman Island, part of the British Virgin Islands.
And John had a wooden leg – just like the book’s famous character.
Sorry, but in the novel, Long John Silver has no wooden leg. He's described as "a seafaring man with one leg," which is off at the hip, and walks with the assistance of a wooden crutch.
Informative article, though, for the most part.
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2 comments:
As the author of Treasire Island: The Untold Story, I must say you are quick to observe the truth. The article was about my book. I never said that Long John Silver was based on the Lloyd brothers. What I did say is that this story is the true life prequel to Stevenson's Treasure Island. There really was a treasure buried in the Caribbean in 1750, just as Captain Flint noted on his treasure map. Only in real life it was a merchant captain born in Flintshire, Wales. For more go to www.treasureislandtheuntoldstory.com
@John Amrhein, Jr.: Thanks for stopping by!
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