Michael Morpurgo explains why he is retelling Treasure Island, how Robert Louis Stevenson shaped his imagination, and where he will talk about his new work
Michael Morpurgo has announced plans to produce a fresh version of Treasure Island, aiming to bring the classic adventure back into the hands of young readers. In an exclusive piece for The Scotsman, the author explains that fewer children pick up Robert Louis Stevenson’s work today and that he wants to change that.
This new project arrives after the author’s earlier reworking of Black Beauty, and it will be one of the topics he discusses at the Boswell Book Festival on May 9.
Retelling here is used deliberately: by retelling Morpurgo means crafting a book that preserves the story’s heart while using language and tone that resonate with contemporary young readers.
He reassures fans of the original that he has taken care not to distort the source, promising a faithful spirit even as he adjusts presentation for a new audience. The aim is simple and urgent: to make Stevenson’s work lively and accessible again for children growing up in a world very different from his.
A fresh retelling of Treasure Island
Morpurgo’s choice of Treasure Island stems from a belief that the tale’s core adventure still thrills, but its style can feel distant to some modern readers. He says too few children encounter the book and that his edition is intended to spark that initial fascination. This project follows his earlier adaptations and reflects a consistent approach: honour the original narrative while offering a reading experience shaped by today’s sensibilities. For Morpurgo, the project also carries a personal tone, since Stevenson’s voice and atmosphere were formative in his own development as a storyteller.
How Robert Louis Stevenson influenced him
The connection between Morpurgo and Robert Louis Stevenson goes beyond admiration. Stevenson, born in Edinburgh in 1850, opened up a landscape—both literal and imaginative—that Morpurgo says changed how he saw stories and places. He recalls being swept across the border into Scottish hills and glens through Stevenson’s books and feeling that the author’s language had a particular music and cadence that spoke directly to him. That early encounter transformed casual reading into a lifelong devotion to narrative voice and atmosphere.
The scenes that stayed with him
As a child Morpurgo remembers living inside Stevenson’s narratives. He describes hiding in the ship’s apple barrel in the voyage to Treasure Island and overhearing mutinous plotting—an episode first read when he was nine or ten that still, decades later at the age of 82, sends a shiver through him. These vivid memories underline why Morpurgo believes some stories are best handed down: they create lasting, imaginative experiences that shape how readers understand risk, loyalty and moral ambiguity.
Stevenson’s legacy in Morpurgo’s writing life
Stevenson’s range—adventure for children, dark fiction for adults, travel writing and poetry—offered Morpurgo a template for variety and bravery in storytelling. Morpurgo describes Stevenson as a kind of informal mentor, someone who modelled how a writer could dare stylistic risks while remaining true to emotional truth. That influence is practical as well as philosophical: after seeing a photograph of Stevenson writing propped up in bed during his final years in Samoa, Morpurgo adopted the same posture when illness confined him, and from that position he produced works including War Horse and Kensuke’s Kingdom.
Taking risks and late-career shifts
Encouraged by Stevenson’s example, Morpurgo says he felt permission to experiment later in life, even beginning to write poetry in his eighties. He credits that nudge to Stevenson’s broad curiosity and refusal to be boxed into a single genre. For Morpurgo, the lesson is practical: a writer’s voice can evolve, and influences absorbed early can resurface as drivers of new creative directions decades on.
Where to hear more
Readers who want to hear Morpurgo discuss these themes in person can catch him at the Boswell Book Festival on May 9, where he will talk about his approach to Black Beauty and the decisions behind his forthcoming Treasure Island retelling. The festival appearance offers a chance to learn more about how a contemporary storyteller works with a classic text, and how the echoes of a writer like Robert Louis Stevenson continue to shape literature for young people.
Ultimately, Morpurgo’s project is an appeal: that children be given the chance to encounter the kind of storytelling that changed his life. By reintroducing Treasure Island in a voice he hopes will feel immediate to modern readers, he aims to revive curiosity, imagination and the particular thrill of a vividly told adventure.
