Book Beginnings | Treasure Island



Robert Louis Stevenson

 It's Christmas time, and I'm behind in next month's book club book and I have just decided to undergo a personal challenge to read "War and Peace."  It's not an ideal time to start a new book and it's not the season to read about pirates but arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, why not?

"Treasure Island" is short, so perhaps I can finish by the end of the month.  Usually I pull out a book beginning post on Friday but it's the holidays and Friday is the day before Christmas.  So, without further ado, here is the opening line from 'Treasure Island':

SQUIRE TRELAWNEY, Dr. Livesey, and the rest of these gentlemen having asked me to write down the whole particulars about Treasure Island, from the beginning to the end, keeping nothing back but the bearings of the island, and that only because there is still treasure not yet lifted, I take up my pen in the year of grace 17__ and go back to the time when my father kept the Admiral Benbow inn and the brown old seaman with the sabre cut first took up his lodging under our roof.


That's a long sentence, but think about the adventure!  The sentence describes why this tale is being told and talks of an island, treasure, and inn and an old seaman with a sword living with the narrator.  Not surprising why this book became a classic with children... this would have roped me in.  What do you think of the opening line?