Dead Man's Chest

Stevenson found the name "Dead Man's Chest" among a list of Virgin Island names in a book by Charles Kingsley, possibly in reference to the Dead Chest Island off Peter Island in the British Virgin Islands. As Stevenson once said, "Treasure Island came out of Kingsley's At Last: A Christmas in the West Indies (1871); where I got the 'Dead Man's Chest'—that was the seed." That is, Stevenson saw the three words "Dead Man's Chest" in Kingsley's book among a list of names, germinating in Stevenson's mind it was the "seed", which then grew into the novel. == Original song ==

In Treasure Island, Stevenson only wrote the chorus, leaving the remainder of the song unwritten, and to the reader's imagination: Another lyric is in the novel in Chapter 23: This lyric also occurs in Chapter 34, where it is "With one man of the crew alive". It is referred to as "that other ship [the pirates] sang about", and it being part of "a dull, old, droning sailor's song". Stevenson does not make clear if these lyrics are part of "Dead Man's Chest" or another fictional song entirely. == Variations and other usage ==

The song was expanded into a 3-verse poem by Young E. Allison, titled "Derelict", published in the Louisville Courier-Journal in 1891. Another appeared in print as "Billy Bones's Fancy", Likewise, in the Hungarian translation of Treasure Island, the phrase is "seven (men) on a dead man's chest"; apparently these numbers provided the closest effect to the original regarding rhyme and syllables in English. Many authors have written prequels and sequels to Treasure Island. One such example is R. F. Delderfield's The Adventures of Ben Gunn (1956), in which Ben tells Jim Hawkins that the song is a reference to "an island of the Leewards" nicknamed "Dead Man's Chest" which "was little more than a long, high rock, shaped like a coffin." In Delderfield's story, the song is about 15 pirates who shipwrecked there who had salvaged many barrels of rum but almost no food, and were "all raving drunk" upon their rescue. Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935), the Portuguese poet, quotes several passages from the Stevenson's poem in "Maritime ode" (Ode Marítima), adding a long paraphrase about "The Great Pirate's Song". ==References==