The Cursed Island

The fictional childhood adventure of a boy named Louis — one other than future writer Robert Louis Stevenson — set on a remote Scottish island in the mid-19th century. Frail in health but overflowing with imagination, Louis is forced to leave the comforts of Edinburgh when he follows his father, a lighthouse engineer, to a remote, sea- and wind-battered island. What promises to be a dull and stormy summer quickly turns into something else. Louis stumbles across strange signs: a hanging rope on the cliffs, the secretive behaviour of the lighthouse keepers and the quiet rumours of the islanders. When he finds a mysterious body hidden in a sea cave, the story becomes a gripping mystery.

More than just an adventure, the novel subtly portrays how a boy on the brink of adolescence learns to trust his instincts, to see the truth behind appearances, and to believe in the power of stories — his own and those he will tell. The echoes of Treasure Island are unmistakable, but here they are reimagined as seeds planted in the restless, observant heart of a boy who will one day become a literary icon.

In the Footsteps of the Great Classics is a fresh, clever and inventive middle-grade series, edited by Guido Sgardoli, that aims to introduce young readers to different narrative genres through the lens of classic authors’ childhoods. Not the original classics, but new stories by contemporary writers, inspired by real or imagined events in the early lives of classic authors like Robert Louis Stevenson, Mary Shelley, Jules Verne, and Agatha Christie. Each volume mixes biography, fiction, and genre exploration — adventure, horror, sci-fi, and mystery — with a final section of writing games and activities.