Treasure Island

Treasure Island is an adventure and historical novel by the Scottish novelist Robert Louis Stevenson. It was published as a book in 1883 but is set in the 18th century, and it tells a story of buccaneers and buried gold. The author first used the working title The Sea Cook: A Story for Boys and the pseudonym Captain George North; when it ran as a serial from 1881 to 1882 in the children's magazine Young Folks it was titled Treasure Island or the Mutiny of the Hispaniola. Its first book edition came out on 14 November 1883 from Cassell and Co. The story follows Jim Hawkins, the son of an innkeeper near Bristol, who joins an expedition aboard the schooner Hispaniola in search of a pirate chart's treasure, and who forms a bond with the one-legged ship's cook Long John Silver. It is a coming-of-age story noted for atmosphere, characters and action, has been dramatised and adapted very often, and shaped popular images of pirates such as treasure maps marked with an X and one-legged seamen with parrots.