Name of speaker

Dr Eric J Graham

Title of talk

Robert Louis Stevenson & the Pirates

Bullet points of what you would like to cover:

Robert Louis Stevenson wrote Treasure island on a rain drench holiday in Braemar to amuse his new step son.
Bed ridden at the time, he relied on books on piracy sent to him and local knowledge he had picked up in Edinburgh.

Suggested you-tube links, websites and / or texts where further information may be found:

Lots on ‘Pirates’ and ‘Robert Louis Stevenson’ – National Library of Scotland as a good site on the latter.

A few words about you and your passion:

Pirates – irresistible!  The prefect antidote to all the turgid academic stuff I have to read

A few lines about the history of your subject:

Endless books and website dedicated to pirates none of which are aware of the Caribbean pirates that were hanged at Leith in 1719 or the great pirate chaser – Captain Macrae of Monkton Preswick.  I wrote the book on how Robert Louis Stevenson’s woven these strands to write Treasure Island using the Scottish connects and the other Scottish connections to piracy

Anything else you may want to say:

I have a very well illustrated powerpoint that lasts 30 mins.
It involves ‘tooling up’ the audience on real ‘black flag’ pirate history before
Relating same to RLS’s Treasure Island.
 

On the 20th Oct 2011 Eric gave a talk alongside Jen McGregor at the Meadow Bar. Big thanks to Mike and Frank and all the staff for helping make the night go smoothly.