Stevenson was less interested in maintaining the boundaries of the authorial body than many of his contemporaries: prosthetic performance in writing, in which more than one person took on the body of the author or performed a part of the creative process, did not seem to perturb him. He was unusually willing to collaborate, less exercised than other writers when it came to notions of literary possession, and frank and self-reflective about the material ‘stolen’ from his own reading. Most memorably, in ‘My First Book Treasure Island’ he acknowledged how ‘plagiarism’ happens, describing the moment he recognized his sources for the novel:

His frank, rueful yet celebratory tone challenges Romantic models of creativity in which ‘visions of literary making are intimately linked with the concept of a singular creator: the creative urge is dramatized as pulsing deep within the fastness of the individual self, and the solitary writer is seen to conjure ideas into the influence– proofed chamber of his or her imagination.’ Stevenson noted that while writing Treasure Island, ‘It seemed to me original as sin; it seemed to belong to me like my right eye.’