Treasure Island is an adventure novel by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson, narrating a tale of "buccaneers and buried gold." Its influence is enormous on popular perceptions of pirates, including such elements as treasure maps marked with an "X", schooners, the Black Spot, tropical islands, and one-legged seamen bearing parrots on their shoulders.
Treasure Island was originally considered a coming-of-age story and is noted for its atmosphere, characters, and action. It is one of the most frequently dramatised of all novels. It was originally serialised in the children's magazine Young Folks from 1881 through 1882 under the title Treasure Island or the mutTreasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson tells the story of Jim, a young boy who watches over an inn in an English seaside town with his mother and his gravely ill father. A new guest at the inn, Bill, terrifies everyone at the inn with his raunchy sea songs and threats of violence. Bill falls ill and dies just as pirates descend on the inn to kill Bill and to ransack his things. Just before the pirates can burst in and find Jim and his mom, the two of them escape with a number of coins and a pouch. Jim finds out that there is a treasure map hidden in the pouch. After showing this map to the doctor that waited on his father and Bill, Dr. Livesey, the doctor and his friend Squire Trelawney decide to set sail to uncover the treasure. Jim goes along as a member of the crew. The squire and doctor hire a number of men to head the voyage, including Long John Silver as the ship's cook. Along the journey at sea, Jim falls asleep inside a barrel and awakes to hear that Long John Silver has planned a mutiny along with most of the crew! Once they reach the island with the treasure, Jim slips onshore with Silver and some of the mutineers. After the mutineers kill two men that don't want to join the mutiny, Jim runs away into the jungle on the island. While there, he meets an abandoned man, Ben Gunn. Meanwhile, Trelawney, the doctor, and the other men get ashore and find a stockade, or a giant wooden enclosure, something like a mini-fort. Eventually, after a meeting between Silver and the captain of the ship in the stockade, there is a battle. While a number of mutineers are killed, two men die and one is injured within the stockade, and Dr. Livesey goes out to find Ben Gunn and enlist his help. Jim sneaks out of the stockade and cuts the ship loose, crashing it on the beach, securing it for the crew, and k