Treasure Island
by Robert Louis Stevenson
Buy on AmazonTraditionally considered a coming-of-age story, Treasure Island is an adventure tale known for its atmosphere, characters and action, and also as a wry commentary on the ambiguity of morality — as seen in Long John Silver — unusual for children's literature then and now. It is one of the most frequently dramatized of all novels. The influence of Treasure Island on popular perceptions of pirates is enormous, including treasure maps marked with an "X", schooners, the Black Spot, tropical islands, and one-legged seamen carrying parrots on their shoulders
Recommended by
"I keep going back to childhood favorites like the Grimms' Fairy Tales, Lewis Carroll, Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island and Kidnapped."
By the Book: Allan Gurganus · nytimes.com
"When I was a tiny boy, my dad read to me, and year after year I demanded "Treasure Island.""
By the Book: Dick Cavett · nytimes.com
"The books I read as a child made me want to write: Stevenson's "Treasure Island" and "Kidnapped"."
By the Book: E L Doctorow · nytimes.com
"Lately I revisited Treasure Island and was as thrilled and charmed as when I first read it as a boy. Stevenson is one of the great, unobtrusive stylists."
By the Book: John Banville · nytimes.com
"My favorite authors were … Robert Louis Stevenson ("Treasure Island")"
By the Book: Kareem Abdul Jabbar · nytimes.com
"Books I loved as a boy — Tolkien's "The Hobbit," for example, or Stevenson's "Treasure Island" — are books I have reread multiple times."
By the Book: Niall Ferguson · nytimes.com
"I loved Robert Louis Stevenson's "Treasure Island""
By the Book: Patrick Modiano · nytimes.com
"Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson. The first book I remember loving."
By the Book: R. L. Stine · nytimes.com
"“Treasure Island,” by Robert Louis Stevenson, was one. I loved Howard Pyle’s Arthurian books, Shakespeare and translations of “Beowulf.”"
By the Book: Robert Bly · nytimes.com
"I imagined myself as Jim Hawkins in “Treasure Island,” an innocent among thieves and cutthroats. It must have been the first book I ever read from start to finish, with unforgettable characters, Long John Silver, Blind Pew, Ben Gunn."
By the Book: Sting · nytimes.com
"This is the first book that I ever read on my own and I take great pleasure and pride in that. It was the first book where I really identified strongly with the boy Jim in it. He was about the same age as I was when I began reading it. What’s really wonderful about the book is that everything is credible, so much so, that I think that it was the first book where I was really able to live inside the hero of the story. I was in that barrel of apples on the deck of the Hispaniola overhearing the plans for the mutiny Long John Silver was making. Until that moment Jim thought Long John Silver was wonderful and very charismatic and all the rest of it and here he is revealed as this dastardly character. And then Jim joins the right side and they triumph. RL Stevenson is the writer that I would like to grow up to be!"
Favourite Children's Books · fivebooks.com