Treasure Island

Description

When young Jim Hawkins finds a mysterious map in a dead sailor's sea trunk, it marks the start of a thrilling treasure hunt - and a very dangerous adventure. Accompanied by the local doctor and squire, he sets off on the high seas as a cabin-boy, determined to find the buried hoard. But they are not alone in their quest, a band of pirates - led by the enigmatic, one-legged Long John Silver - will stop at nothing to take back what they believe is theirs. One of the best-loved children's stories of all time, Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island is a thrilling tale of swashbuckling heroes and dastardly villains that continues to enchant readers young and old. This beautiful edition of Treasure Island is illustrated by H. M. Brock, with an afterword by Sam Gilpin. Designed to appeal to the booklover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautifully bound gift editions of much loved classic titles.

Robert Louis Stevenson was born in Edinburgh in 1850, the only son of an engineer, Thomas Stevenson. Despite a lifetime of poor health, Stevenson was a keen traveller, and his first book An Inland Voyage (1878) recounted a canoe tour of France and Belgium. In 1880 he married an American divorcee, Fanny Osbourne, and there followed Stevenson's most productive period, in which he wrote, amongst other books, Treasure Island (1883), The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and Kidnapped (both 1886). In 1888, Stevenson left Britain in search of a more salubrious climate, settling in Samoa, where he died in 1894.