1. For what was Stevenson convicted as a student?

   1. Throwing snowballs

   2. Stealing a parrot

   3. Abusing the English

   4. Being drunk in the precincts of the university

2. The two grave-robbing students, Fettes and Macfarlane, in the story The Body Snatcher, are working under the guidance of

   1. A corrupt policeman

   2. A wealthy undertaker

   3. A professor of anatomy

   4. A literary critic

3. An unfinished comic novel RLS wrote in his 20s about university graduates trying to set up an “ideal commonwealth” in Samoa was published this autumn. What is it called?

   1. The Hair Trunk

   2. Across the South Seas

   3. Return to Treasure Island

   4. The Isle of Voices

4. Which of these actors hasn’t played Long John Silver?

   1. Eddie Izzard

   2. Charlton Heston

   3. Johnny Depp

   4. Tim Curry

5. Which RLS novel features the cabin boy Ransome?

   1. Catriona

   2. Kidnapped

   3. Treasure Island

   4. Prince Otto: A Romance

6. Which poem from A Chlld’s Garden of Verses begins with the lines: 'When I was sick and lay a-bed/ I had two pillows at my head?'

   1. The Land of Nod

   2. The Stairs to Bedfordshire

   3. My Bed is a Boat

   4. The Land of Counterpane

7. How and at what age did Stevenson die?

   1. At 44, while making an omelette

   2. At 54, after being stung by a mosquito in Samoa

   3. At 64, while attempting to splice a mainbrace

   4. At 74, of hypothermia, after getting lost in a blizzard

8. Which useful piece of equipment was Stevenson said to have invented while travelling through French mountains with a donkey in his 20s?

   1. The crampon

   2. Insect repellent

   3. The sleeping bag

   4. The portable toilet

9. Who or what was Captain George North?

   1. The pseudonym under which Stevenson first wrote Treasure Island

   2. The Captain of the Covenant in Kidnapped

   3. Long John Silver’s parrot

   4. The captain of the Hispanaola in Treasure Island

10. From which novel does this quote come: 'With every day, and from both sides of my intelligence, the moral and the intellectual, I thus drew steadily nearer to the truth, by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck'?

    1. Treasure Island

    2. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

    3. Kidnapped

    4. Catriona

Solutions

1:A, 2:C, 3:A, 4:C, 5:B, 6:D, 7:A, 8:C, 9:A, 10:B

Scores

1. 1 and above.

   Shiver your timbers. It's a walk down the gangplank for you...

2. 3 and above.

   The strange case of could do better, but might have done worse …

3. 8 and above.

   Yo-ho-ho. You make it look like plain sailing