The striking jacket of this new edition of an old classic promises more than it delivers. Thirty-one plates, full-color but predominantly in earth-tone hues, are dropped into the text, sometimes mindlessly. For example, the cover art, a pirate digging in sand among pieces of eight, reappears on page 61, facing text that sketches the lives of pirates, "gentlemen of fortune." The text never relates to the art. Ingpen's style is impressionistic but evocative of N. C. Wyeth's illustrations for the same title (Scribners, 1911, reissued by Time Warner, 1992); his plate of Blind Pow shows the subject in much the same pose. In some paintings, Ingpen uses angle and perspective effectively; interest is added by superimposing people upon background, or vice-versa. Spot line drawings, some used more than once, accent many pages. Unfortunately, in some cases, a subject is not recognizable from one page to the next, and the hazy impressionistic style makes it difficult to interpret some pictures. Although superficially handsome, this title has stiff competition from many other editions of Treasure Island , the Wyeth edition, especially. --Carolyn Noah, Central Mass. Regional Library System, Worcester, MA
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
