Flint and Silver - Hardcover

Drake, John

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0007268882 ISBN 13: 9780007268887

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2008

Synopsis

Rare Book

About this title

Review:

‘Flint & Silver contains the essential ingredients to attract a worldwide following’ Western Morning News

From the Author:

Long ago there was a boys's comic called Eagle. It was more wonderful that I have time - here - to say, except to mention that there are men of my age all over the world who grow misty-eyed at the mention of its name. The main event in Eagle was a science fiction hero called Dan Dare, pilot of the future but there was much else, including long text extracts from famous books.

So. In the Eagle aged about eight years I read an extract from CS Forrester's new book Mr Midshipman Hornblower describing Hornblower's examination for Lieutenant aboard Santa Barbara in Gibralter during the Napoleonic Wars, which examination is interrupted by a Spanish attack using fireships ... which knocked me sideways. It was my introduction to the world of eighteenth century seafaring: carronades and cascabels, t'gallanants and stunsails. Marvellous! For me a life-long love affair.

More important it was my introduction to the power of the written word to transport the reader out of this world and into another. So for me, the reading came before the writing. But then I started making up stories ... on the way to school, in school where I loved writing essays before all else, and any other time when I wasn't doing something else.

For me, writing, storytelling is an irresistible addictive compulsion that I can't stop or deny. Which has consequences ...Thus it's very hard for me ever to be bored, because the story telling starts in my head ...but it's also very hard for me to like music because that gets in the way of my thoughts.

So I made up stories as a little boy, but I carried on reading, and one of the books I read was Treasure Island which I loved, especially because Stevenson's boy hero Jim Hawkins is let loose on his adventures with a pair of real pistols, and shoots a real villain stone dead, and they didn't do that in Boys' own comics.

Recently I re-read Treasure Island, and still loved it, but I was struck with the fact that it reads like a sequel, and is full of un-answered questions. How did Long John lose his leg? Where did he get the parrot? Who was the black girl he married? Who was the monster, demon, Captain Flint?

And above all, why did they bury the treasure? Think about that because buried treasure is so deeply entrenched in our culture that we never ask why pirates did it. And the truth is that they didn't. I know of no proven instance of pirates burying their treasure. This isn't surprising. Pirates lived short lives. They didn't set aside for the future. When they got money it went on girls, booze and food. You didn't stick in a hole in the ground to get 5.75% interest minus tax at standard rate. You didn't set it aside for the future because you didn't have a future. Blackbeard the most famous of all pirates lasted about fifteen months till the Navy caught him and killed him and cut his head off.

Ladies and gentlemen, there's big question: why did they bury the treasure?

So. Since RLS was dead, and I was fascinated by this period of history. I decided to answer all these prequel/sequel questions, but to do it for adults. Stephenson wrote the book for his stepson Lloyd Osborne who was thirteen and wanted no women in the book. But I can't have that. I'm older than thirteen.

So I brought Long John to life again, who has for years been in the shadow of Robert Newton's character: a short, dark, boozy, dirty, squinting A-harrr Jim-Lad, which is nothing like the character Stevenson created: who should be tall - that's why he's called Long John - and big and clean and blond!

Flint was the other great opportunity. In Treasure Island he was long dead, but a monster who terrified everyone but Silver. So I've brought him to life, as a monster, but a beautiful one. A charismatic psychopath. Charming and clever and mad.

The rest of it is in the book, including the real reason - well my reason - why they buried the treasure. I loved writing it. I hope you may enjoy reading it. Flint and Silver is the beginning of a series. There are plenty more to come. And I'll keep writing them if you keep buying them.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0007268882
• ISBN 13: 9780007268887
• Binding: Hardcover