Treasure Island

Description

When old drunken sailor Billy Bones dies at the Admiral Benbow Inn, the innkeeper's son Jim Hawkins finds a map amongst his possessions. The local physician, Doctor Livesey, and the squire, Trelawney, believe the map is of an island where the infamous pirate Captain Flint buried his treasure. They decide to buy a ship to go and find it, and Jim decides to join the crew as cabin boy. But also joining Captain Smollett's crew is a one-legged cook with a parrot named Long John Silver. As Jim discovers, Silver is just one of the crew who was also part of Captain Flint's crew, and they're planning a mutiny. After they reach the island and the pirates rise up, Jim is separated from the others loyal to Captain Smollett. He soon learns that they are not alone on the island after all, and that perhaps the treasure has already been found. Treasure Island has been entertaining readers of all ages for 130 years and it is just as witty and as thrilling today as it was when first published. This special edition includes the much-loved original text, along the map that inspired Stevenson to write the novel. It also features an exclusive Foreword by Pirates of the Caribbean star Mackenzie Crook.

Robert Louis Stevenson was born in Edinburgh in 1850. He wrote Treasure Island, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Kidnapped over a short period in his mid 30s. Having suffered from frequent illness throughout his life he and his family moved to the more hospitable climate of the Samoan Islands but he died in 1894 aged only 44. Though one of the first celebrity writers he fell out of literary favour after his death, but his popularity grew once more following film adaptations of several of his books.