"TREASURE ISLAND" LINK

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 06, Issue 95, 3 August 1943, Page 3

"TREASURE ISLAND" LINK

PUBLICATION OF BOOK

DISCOVERED BY READER

One night in 1883 the editorial head of the London publishing house of Cassell's handed a dilapidated exercise book, into which the cuttings of a serial had been roughly pasted, to a junior member of his staff with the instruction that he should glance through it, and the following morning offer an opinion on the story. Originally published in a penny weekly, Young Folk,, the serial, which was called "The Sea Cook," was by an unknown writer named Robert Louis Stevenson. The young man began reading the cuttings after his tea, and found the story so fantastic that he sat up until dawn to finish it. He painted such a glowing picture of it that the editor decided to publish it— but not with the original title, which, the editor decided, was unsuitable. The title was then changed to "Treasure Island," and the story was published in boolk form. That discerning young reader was Mr E. A. Vidler,, who went to Australia a few years later, and who died in Melbourne, aged 79, at his home in Melbourne. The story of how Mr Vidler rescued the famous book Avas told, by one of his oldest, friends, Mr E. E. Pescott, Australian author. Mr Pescott said that a few days after the book had been published under its new title, its author, dressed in a velveteen coat, came: excitedly into the publishing house to collect his reward—loo guineas! Its success was so overwhelming, however, that the company drew up a new agreement, which carried a much more handsome royalty. Twenty-eight years after —in 1911 —when Cassell's published a limited de luxe edition of "Treasure Island"—2so copies Mr Vidler's part in its discovery was not forgotten, and the company sent him one of the editions, which is now in Mr Pcscott's possession. Mr Vidler was the director of the Australian Institute o fthe Arts and Literature, editor and proprietor of the Evening Ncavs., Geelong, and The Tatler Weekly, the author of a number of books on Australian birds and animals, and editor of the Adam Lindsay Gordon Memorial Volume.