E X T E N S I O N GENESIS OF TREASURE ISLAND Stevenson began to write Treasure Island for the amusement1 of his 12-year-old stepson2 Lloyd Osbourne. The idea came to him one rainy morning in August 1881, during a wet and miserable holiday in the Scottish Highlands. This is how Lloyd remembers that moment: busy with a box of paints, I was tinting the map of an island I had drawn. Stevenson came in as I was finishing it. And, with his affectionate interest in everything I was doing, he leaned3 over my shoulder, and was soon elaborating the map and naming it. I will never forget the thrill4 of Skeleton Island, Spy-Glass Hill and the three red crosses! And when he wrote down the words Treasure Island in the top right-hand corner! He seemed to know so much about it too the pirates, the buried treasure, the man who had been marooned 5 on the island. Oh, for a story about it! I exclaimed in a heaven of enchantment 1. amusement: fun. 2. stepson: a son that a husband or wife has from a previous relationship. 3. leaned: bent his body (in a certain direction). 4. thrill: emotion. 5. marooned: abandoned on a desert island. Photographic negative and print by Lloyd Osbourne, 1885. 27