Do Pictures Pirate Text?

What I liked most about the interviews with Roald Dahl and W.D. Snodgrass was their apparent willingness and enthusiasm to have their work illustrated and engage in the writer/artist relationship. (Which is always nice!)

This paper looking at the role of illustration in the original publications of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island show another side to this willingness. It is quite opposite to our times (as a general rule) but Stevenson wanted his work illustrated because it would 'sell better'. 
There are contemporary examples of books being sold on the credit of their illustrations, the folio society being the main one, however a book aimed at the best-sellers list would generally be wary of a surplus of illustrations due to current conventions where illustration is seen as somewhat childish or archaic.

The people of Stevenson's day meanwhile would be more than happy and attracted to a book rich in the visuals presented here.

"As another medium for circulating the narrative, illustrations also deserve our attention because of their proliferation and Stevenson's preoccupation with them. In his account of writing Treasure Island, Stevenson envisions his map of the island as the first illustration and as resistant to reproduction.
He worries that artists can devalue his text through inaccurate imitation or revision. Both sources reveal that Stevenson values illustration for improving the novel's sales but also is concerned they contribute negatively to it's status as popular fiction."

Stevenson was still obviously concerned with how the dual discourse of text and image would read in regards to his story but also how it would be received publicly. It's interesting that he doesn't want (bad) illustration to devalue his work to a piece of common popular fiction when in contemporary times the same might be said for illustration in adult fiction to lower the expectation of the texts intelligence or age of its readership.

The dangers and difficulties with a writers work being illustrated are discussed here. From the authors point of view his work should to be key in visualising. The illustrations must compliment but not steer the readers reception and response to the text.

As examined earlier (looking at comics) the primary danger when the book is picked up is not only that the illustrations put off a reader but that the book in Stevenson's words, "be skimmed, swift as a racer, the points seized, the story drained of such cheap virtue as it possesses in five minutes instead of in the tedium of several hours of study."
While this can work well in attracting the audience, invoking interest in the mystery ahead, the illustrations should not tell the whole narrative but give a taste:
"There is nothing more delightful than the first skimming of a storybook with pictures: the faces, the costumes, the strange incidents, the clearness and mystery, the story told and still remaining unknown."

'Expert illustrators must remain loyal to the text, while simultaneously adding their own style: "A picture in a story book must be something more than a mere pretty picture...it should narrate. It should be the handmaiden of the text, competing with another accent and the stamp of a different mind."



Stevenson acknowledges a want and need for illustration but is also wary of it 'pirating' the text. "Illustrations contribute to the text's popularity but pressure the author to create the more memorable versions of the characters and events. Of greater concern to Stevenson are poor quality illustrations that fail to convey the essence and depth of the written narrative."

Stevenson's pirates are unique to us in that they are not the swashbuckling pirates we generally meet in story books and blockbuster movies but are are decaying and weather beaten. And yet as the book is illustrated and re-illustrated as time goes by those characters are generalised into a stereotype we can all recognise.

"The emphasis on deterioration suggests Stevenson is self-conscious that he employs a timeworn stereotype. Ironically, however, his pirates’ ruined forms set them apart from their predecessors (and many of their successors), who typically attract readers with their glamorous, sturdy figures. 

The illustrations frequently ignore Stevenson’s thorough character sketches by instead replicating these stereotypes and inscribing them back into the narrative. "

Once more it is down to the author to "create the more memorable versions of characters and events"

That the text is not only illustrated but re-illustrated is an interesting fact in itself. 
The illustrations tend less to draw upon the narrative and Stevenson's descriptions and more upon copying each other and reflecting the fashions of the day.

"The value of otherwise acclaimed work fades, as different artists’ versions of the same crucial scenes, when viewed collectively, appear to lack innovation."

On the illustration below: "The woodcut employs a common approach to representing criminals: whether they feature pirates or highwaymen, among others, such illustrations send a clear message that their subjects are based on a generic figuration of “the outlaw.”