Dead Man's Chest Dead Man's Chest "Dead Man's Chest" (also known as "Fifteen Men On The Dead Man's Chest" or "Derelict") is a fictional sea song, originally from Robert Louis Stevenson's novel "Treasure Island" (1883). It was expanded in a poem, titled "Derelict" by Young E. Allison, published in the "Louisville Courier-Journal" in 1891. It has since been used in many later works of art in various forms. Stevenson found the name "Dead Man's Chest" among a list of Virgin Island names in a book by Charles Kingsley, possibly in reference to the Dead Chest Island off Peter Island in the British Virgin
Robert Louis Stevenson To provide some security, it was agreed that Stevenson should read Law (again at Edinburgh University) and be called to the Scottish bar. In his 1887 poetry collection "Underwoods", Stevenson muses on his having turned from the family profession: Say not of me that weakly I declined<br> The labours of my sires, and fled the sea,<br> The towers we founded and the lamps we lit,<br> To play at home with paper like a child.<br> But rather say: "In the afternoon of time"<br> "A strenuous family dusted from its hands"<br> "The sand of granite, and beholding far"<br> "Along the sounding coast