The Writing Post

In making for a brief post today, I thought we would look at “Fifteen Men on the Dead Man’s Chest” by Robert Louis Stevenson, as it relates directly to Treasure Island (1883). It also appears in Chapter 1 of the novel.

In examining this poem, we can understand a little background about the verse itself and how it relates to the author’s novel. Of course, the poem is about pirates and the life of a pirate, but what inscrutable details can we parse out of it? Let’s find out!

Poem

Fifteen men on the Dead Man’s Chest —

Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!

Drink and the devil had done for the rest —

Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!

…

With one man of her crew alive,

What put to sea with seventy-five.

Analysis

As stated, the poem comes from Treasure Island (1883) by Robert Louis Stevenson. It references the pirate Black Beard’s attempt to punish a mutinous crew by marooning them on Dead Man’s Chest island. The island itself is only 250 square yards and features high cliffs and not much to eat. Not a completely dastardly man, Black Beard left the crew members (15 all told) with a cutlass and bottle of rum apiece. His intention to return after 30 days to find that the men had all killed themselves fails, as they are still alive.

Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!

According to Stevenson, he found the name “Dead Man’s Chest” in a book by Charles Kingsley. Stevenson wrote: “Treasure Island came out of Kingsley’s At Last; where I go the Dead Man’s Chest — and that was the seed….” Additionally, Stevenson said the book itself came from Captain Johnson’s History of the Notorious Pirates. “

Curiously, a footnote in Selected Letters states that “Charles Kingsley refers briefly to The Dead Man’s Chest as the name given by buccaneers to one of the islets in the Virgin Islands. The name is in face Dead Chest Island; there is a Deadman’s Bay on the nearby Peter Island” (Stevenson).

Works Cited

Stevenson, Robert Louis. Selected Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson. New Haven, London. 2001.