Treasure Island. by Stevenson, Robert Louis - 1886

London; Paris; New York; Melbourne. Cassell & Company, Limited. 1886., 1886. FIRST BRITISH ILLUSTRATED EDITION, second impression. Octavo, pp. viii, 292, [4]. With 26 black and white plates, including frontispiece map and illustrated titlepage, as called for. Bound in full polished calf with gilt foliate rolled borders and gilt centrepiece ornament of the Edinburgh Institution; 5 raised spine bands; gilt French corners ornaments to spine compartments; red morocco spine label with gilt titles; marbled endpapers and fore-edges. Surface crack to calf at spine joint which is secure and holding. Minor wear to corners, light speckled foxing to endpapers and prelims, and an engraved presentation plate to front paste-down dated 1887. Calf clean and gilt is bright. Text-block square, tight, clean and free of annotations and inscriptions. Stevenson's classic pirate adventure, with illustrations by various illustrators and engravers predominantly Georges Roux. Stevenson much approved of this edition, writing in a letter to his father in November 1885 "An illustrated Treasure Island will be out next month, [...] the pictures are admirable, [Roux] is full of fire and spirit, can draw and can compose, and has understood the book as I meant it." An important edition in the visual development of Stevenson's pirate mythology. Prideaux, pp. 27-28.