Treasure Island was first set down as a map to entertain Stevenson’s step-son, twelve-year-old Lloyd Osbourne, home for the holidays in wet Braemar. As Stevenson’s imagination filled with the exploits of young Jim Hawkins at the mercy of the rum-soaked buccaneer Captain Flint, Israel Hands, the babbling Ben Gunn and, of course, that most appealing of merciless villains, the one-legged Long John Silver, it grew into perhaps the most famous adventure story of all time. First published in 1883, Treasure Island has retained its attractions for boys, girls and armchair adventurers for more than a century. As George MacDonald Fraser points out in his introduction to this edition, it may be ‘merely’ an unashamed swashbuckling yarn but it is written in such beautiful, unaffected prose and is blessed with such instantly memorable characters and dialogue that it is likely to continue to delight readers for further centuries to come.
