Treasure Island [antikvár]

MY FIRST BOOKTREASURE ISLANDIt was far, indeed, from being my first book, for I am not a novelist alone. But I am well aware that my paymaster, the great public, regards what else I have written with indifference, if not aversion. If it call upon me at all, it calls on me in the familiar and indelible character; and when I am asked to talk of my first book, no question in the world but what is meant is my first novel.Sooner or later, somehow, anyhow, I was bound to write a novel. It seems vain to ask why. Men are born with various manias : from my earliest childhood it was mine to make a plaything of imaginary series of events ; and as soon as I was able to write, I became a good friend to the paper-makers. Reams upon reams must have gone to the making of Rathillet, the Pentland Rising,*, the King's Pardon (otherwise Park Whitehead), Edward Darren, A Country Dance, and a Vendetta in the West; and it is consolatory to remember that these reams are now all ashes, and have been received again into the soil. I have named but a* Ne pas confondre. Not the slim green pamphlet with the imprint of Andrew Elliott, for which (as I see with amazement from the booklists) the gentlemen of England are willing to pay fancy prices; but its predecessor, a bulky historical romance without a spark of merit, and now deleted from the world.ix