The True Story of Treasure Island

It was always thought that Treasure Island was the product of Robert Louis Stevenson’s imagination. ______, recent research has found the true story of this exciting work.

Stevenson, a Scotsman, had lived ______ for many years. In 1881 he returned to Scotland for a ______.With him were his American wife Fanny and his son ______.

Each morning Stevenson would take them out for a long ______ over the hills. They had been ______ this for several days before the weather suddenly took a turn for the worse. Kept indoors by the heavy rain, Lloyd felt the days ______.To keep the boy happy, Robert asked the boy to do some ______.

One morning, the boy came to Robert with a beautiful map of an island, Robert ______that the boy had drawn a large cross in the middle of ______. “What’s that?” he asked. “That’s the ______ treasure,” said the boy. Robert suddenly ______ something of an adventure story in the boy’s ______.While the rain was pouring, Robert sat down by the fire to write a story. He would make the ______ a twelve-year-old boy, just like Lloyd. But who would be the pirate (海盗)？

Robert had a good friend named Henley, who walked around with the ______ of a wooden leg. Robert had always wanted to ______ such a man in a story. ______ Long John Silver, the pirate with a wooden leg, was ______.

Growing Pains 104

   William Butler Yeats was born in Sandy mount，County Dublin，Ireland on June 13th，1865.His father John was a law student who later pursued art，and young William and his siblings moved back and forth between Dublin and London during much of their _________.

Most of their holidays were _________with their mother's family in Sligo，a region whose landscape，culture and folklore（民俗）_________ his own works.

While his family belonged to the main Protestant minority which _________ themselves with the British，Yeats firmly _________ himself Irish. Indeed many of his poems and plays reflect Irish legends and castles. In 1885，Yeats started _________ poems as a young man of 20.Many of his early works were later published as The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems.

He became _________ in politics，which resulted in his becoming an Irish senator（参议员）in 1922 when the Irish Free State was formed. He _________ for 6 years but continued to _________ well into his seventies.

Later in London，he also co-founded the Rhymer's Club for __________ to share their verses，with his own __________becoming popular with other poets.In1899，as Yeats began writing dramas，he established the Irish Literary Theatre __________ other like-minded people to stage Irish plays. His __________ were influenced by the Japanese Noh style of writing，a type of traditional Japanese theatre which tended to be musical rather than __________ on prose.

Yeats became __________ when he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923，becoming one of the first Irish laureates（桂冠诗人）.His book The Tower was set in his own __________，which he had bought and restored. __________，many of his best works were written when he was well past 50，and they continue to be __________ today.

In 1939，Yeats died in France on a trip there. He was __________ at Roquebrune，but according to his __________，his remains were later taken to Sligo and buried at Drumcliff in 1948.

   If anyone knows what makes a great children's book，it must be Sussex author and illustrator（插图画家）Jane Hissey. Her "Old Bear" books have achieved classic status in a variety of formats.

I met Jane at her home in the East Sussex countryside and asked her what she thought the secret of a classic children's book was. "That's a difficult one, I suppose it has got to be related to children's stage of development-for young children, pictures on a page that are familiar; for older children, an experience. The book should be familiar, but hold some surprises too to keep the interest. It must inspire and delight them, but there are the things that happen every day."

After the birth of her first child, she gave up teaching and worked on her own artwork, drawing pictures of teddy bears. An editor from a publishing company saw her work and invited Jane to do a children's book. Over the years, from the first "Old Bear" book in 1986, her children have made a huge contribution-especially in terms of plots. She said, "I used to give my children the toys to play with-and they had tea parties and so on. One of my bear characters,' Little Bear', is the same age as Ralph, my youngest, who's seven now. All the children have joined in my work and, in years to come, they will realize how much."

"I hope I'll know when people are getting tired of the characters. If ever they did, I think I'd go on drawing them for fun," Jane continued. "My own children have been very useful to me in my work, but as they are older now, I' ll just have to hope that other people's children can inspire me."