Insula Thesauraria - Latin Edition Author:Robert Louis Stevenson Insula Thesauraria is a thrilling translation of Treasure Island, one of the best adventure stories ever written. The translator, Acadius Avellanus was a one-time tutor to John D. Rockefeller?s grandchildren and proponent of Latin as a living language. Indeed, a Hungarian by birth, Avellanus spoke Latin as a child. This is not so surprising, for... more » Latin was the official language of Hungary until the 1840's and widely spoken by the aristocracy and, of course, the clergy. For him, as much as any Renaissance or Mediaeval author, Latin was a living language and his style displays all the natural vigour of someone writing in their own tongue. For those who have studied Latin up to intermediate level, Insula Thesauraria will both entertain and make more advanced studies more pleasurable. For the benefit of the student and more philologically minded, this edition includes the translator?s sixty-three page essay, Prooemium, in which he formulates his views of neo Latin composition and restates his controversial opposition to the German Latin scholarship of his time.« less