Treasure Island (originally titled The Sea Cook: A Story for Boys) is an adventure and historical novel by Scottish novelist Robert Louis Stevenson. It was published as a book in 1883, but is set in the 18th century, and tells a story of "buccaneers and buried gold". It is considered a coming-of-age story, and is noted for its atmosphere, characters, and action.
The novel was originally serialised from 1881 to 1882 in the children's magazine Young Folks under the title Treasure Island or the Mutiny of the Hispaniola, credited to the pseudonym "Captain George North". It was first published as a book on 14 November 1883 by Cassell & Co. It has since become one of the most-often dramatised and adapted novels.
Since its publication Treasure Island has significantly influenced depictions of pirates in popular culture, including elements such as deserted tropical islands, treasure maps marked with an "X", and one-legged seamen with parrots perched on their shoulders.
Plot summary
In the mid-18th century, an old sailor who identifies himself as "The Captain" lodges at the rural Admiral Benbow Inn near Bristol. He spends his mornings walking on the local beaches and cliffs watching for ships with a spyglass. Afternoons and evenings, he intimidates the other guests by singing pirate songs and telling wild sea stories. He tells the innkeeper's son, Jim Hawkins, to beware of "a seafaring man with one-leg".
A rogue known as Black Dog confronts "The Captain", a former shipmate. They argue about the disposition of a mysterious chart, and "The Captain", proper name Billy Bones, runs Black Dog off in a cutlass fight before collapsing from a stroke. That night, Jim's father dies from poor health. Days later, Pew, a blind beggar who is also a former pirate, delivers a summons to Bones which he calls "the black spot". Shortly thereafter, Bones dies of a stroke.
Pew and his accomplices attack the inn but are attacked and routed by mounted excise officers, and Pew is trampled to death by one of their horses. Jim and his mother escape with a packet from Bones' sea chest, which is found to contain a map of the island on which the infamous pirate Captain Flint hid his treasure. Jim shows the map to physician Dr. Livesey who is also a magistrate, and the local gentry, Squire Trelawney, and they decide to make an expedition to the island, with Jim serving as a cabin boy.
They set sail from Bristol on a schooner chartered by Trelawney, the Hispaniola, under Captain Alexander Smollett. Jim forms a strong bond with the ship's one-legged cook, Long John Silver. The crew suffers a tragedy when first mate Mr. Arrow, a drunkard, is washed overboard during a storm. Late one night, Jim hides when he overhears several crewmen, led by Silver, discussing their pasts as pirates on Flint’s crew. They plan to mutiny after the salvage of the treasure, and to murder the captain and the few remaining loyal crew. Jim secretly informs Captain Smollett, Trelawney, and Livesey.
Arriving at the island and going ashore, Jim flees into the jungle after witnessing Silver murder a sailor for refusing to join the mutiny. He meets a marooned pirate named Ben Gunn, who is also a former member of Flint's crew. The mutineers arm themselves and take the ship, while Jim and Smollett's loyal band take refuge in an abandoned stockade on the island. After a brief truce, the mutineers attack the stockade, with casualties on both sides of the battle. Jim makes his way to the Hispaniola and cuts the ship from its anchor, drifting it along the ebb tide. He boards the ship and encounters the pirate Israel Hands, who had been injured in a drunken dispute with one of his companions. Hands helps Jim beach the schooner in the northern bay, then attempts to kill Jim with a dagger, but Jim shoots him dead with two pistols.
Jim goes ashore and returns to the stockade, where he is horrified to find only Silver and the pirates. Silver tells Jim that when everyone found the ship was gone, Captain Smollett's party had agreed to a truce whereby the pirates take the map and allow the besieged party to leave. In the morning, Livesey arrives to treat the wounded and sick pirates, and tells Silver to look out for trouble once he's found the site of the treasure. After a dispute over leadership, Silver and the others set out with the map, taking Jim along as a hostage. They find a skeleton with its arms oriented toward the treasure, unnerving the party. Ben Gunn shouts Captain Flint's last words from the forest, making the superstitious pirates believe that Flint's ghost is haunting the island. They eventually find a treasure cache, but it is empty. The pirates prepare to kill Silver and Jim, but they are driven off by the doctor's party, including Gunn. Livesey explains that Gunn had already found the bulk of the treasure and taken it to his cave, long ago. The expedition members load this portion of the treasure onto the Hispaniola and depart the island, with Silver as their only prisoner. At their first port, in Spanish America, Silver steals a bag of money and escapes. The remaining crew sail back to Bristol and divide up the treasure. Some treasure was never found, but Jim refuses to return to the "accursed" island to look for it.
Inspiration
Treasure Island was written by Stevenson after returning from his first trip to America, where he was married. Still a relatively unknown author, inspiration came to him in summer of 1881 in Braemar, Scotland, when bad weather kept the family inside. To amuse his 12-year old stepson Lloyd Osbourne, he used the idea of a secret map as the basis of a story about hidden treasure.
He had clearly started work by 25 August, writing to a friend, "If this don't fetch the kids, why, they have gone rotten since my day. Will you be surprised to learn that it is about Buccaneers, that it begins in the Admiral Benbow public house on the Devon coast, that it's all about a map and a treasure and a mutiny and a derelict ship... It's quite silly and horrid fun – and what I want is the best book about Buccaneers that can be had."
Stevenson originally gave the book the title The Sea Cook. One month after conceiving of the book, chapters began to appear in the pages of the Young Folks magazine. After completing several chapters rapidly, Stevenson was interrupted by illness. He left Scotland and continued working on the first draft near London, where he and his father discussed points of the tale, and his father suggested elements that he included. The novel eventually ran in seventeen weekly instalments from 1 October 1881 to 28 January 1882. The book was later republished as the novel Treasure Island and proved to be Stevenson's first financial and critical success.
The growth of the desert island genre can be traced back to 1719 when Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe was published. A century later, novels such as S. H. Burney's The Shipwreck (1816), and Sir Walter Scott's The Pirate (1822) continued to expand upon Defoe's classic. Other authors in the mid-19th century continued this trend, with works including James Fenimore Cooper's The Pilot (1823). During the same period, Edgar Allan Poe wrote "MS Found in a Bottle" (1833) and "The Gold-Bug" (1843). All of these works influenced Stevenson's end product.
Stevenson also consciously borrowed material from previous authors. In a letter from July 1884 to Sidney Colvin, he wrote that, "Treasure Island came out of Kingsley's At Last, where I got the Dead Man's Chest — and that was the seed — and out of the great Captain Johnson's History of the Notorious Pirates." Stevenson also admits that he took the idea of Captain Flint's pointing skeleton from Poe's The Gold-Bug and he constructed Billy Bones's history from the "Money-Diggers" section ("Golden Dreams" in particular) of Tales of a Traveller by Washington Irving, one of his favourite writers.
Characters
Main
Jim Hawkins: The narrator of most of the novel. Jim is the son of an innkeeper on the north Devon coast of England and appears to be in his mid-teens. He is eager to go to sea and hunt for treasure. Jim consistently displays courage and heroism, but is also sometimes impulsive and impetuous. He exhibits increasing sensitivity and wisdom as the journey progresses.
Long John Silver: The one-legged cook aboard the Hispaniola. Silver is the secret leader of the pirates. He is deceitful, mean, and greedy, but also charismatic, and his physical and mental strength are impressive. He is kind toward Jim and appears genuinely fond of him. Silver was based in part on Stevenson's friend and mentor William Ernest Henley.
Dr. David Livesey: A doctor and magistrate; he narrates a few chapters of the novel. He exhibits common sense and rationality, and is fair-minded, treating wounded pirates just as he does his own comrades. But he does not hesitate to express his opinions and dislikes openly towards the pirates. Some years prior to the events of the novel, he had participated in the Battle of Fontenoy, during which he was wounded in action.
Captain Alexander Smollett: The captain of the Hispaniola. He is savvy and is rightly suspicious of the crew that Trelawney hires. Smollett is a real professional, taking his job seriously and displaying skill as a negotiator. Smollett believes in rules and does not like Jim's disobedience, but later in the novel states that he and Jim shouldn't go to sea together again as Jim was too much of the born favourite for him.
Squire John Trelawney: A wealthy landowner who arranges the voyage to the island. He is too trusting and is duped by Silver into hiring pirates as the ship's crew.
Billy Bones: An old seaman who resides at the Admiral Benbow Inn. He used to be Flint's first mate, and is surly and rude. He exhorts Jim to be on the lookout for a one-legged man. A treasure map in his possession sets the events of the novel in motion.
Ben Gunn: A former member of Captain Flint's crew who was found on Treasure Island, having been marooned there by another ship's crew three years earlier when they couldn't find Flint's treasure. He is described as being "insane", at least partially, and has a craving for cheese. He helps Silver escape and in England receives £1,000 (equivalent to £105,127 in 2025) which he spends or loses in 20 days. He becomes a Lodge gamekeeper and also sings in a church choir.
In the semi-official prequel story Porto Bello Gold by Arthur D. Howden Smith, Ben Gunn was the servant of captain Andrew "Rip-Rap" Murray, Flint's associate and the mastermind behind the capture of the treasure ship Santissima Trinidad, whence the buried treasure was taken. Murray described Ben Gunn as a "half-wit" whom he kept as servant specifically because he considered him intellectually incapable of treachery. After Flint's crew killed Murray and overpowered his crew, Ben Gunn went to serve Flint and fled the Walrus in Savannah after Flint's death.
According to The Adventures of Ben Gunn, he was Nic Allardyce's servant and friend from back home.
Minor
Alan: An honest sailor who is killed by the mutineers during the landing on the island and whose death scream is heard across the isle. The incident occurs just before Long John murders Tom.
Allardyce: One of the six members of Flint's Crew who, after burying the treasure and silver and building the blockhouse on Treasure Island, are all killed by Flint, who returns to his ship alone. Allardyce's body is lined up by Flint as a compass marker to the cache.
In Porto Bello Gold, one sailor on Flint's ship is named "Tom Allardyce". A lanky fellow with rather long, yellow hair, he is an antagonistic ringleader of sailors opposing Flint in at least two "fo'c'sle councils". Flint thinks they may present him with the Black Spot; he eventually challenges Allardyce to bring six friends and bury the treasure together.
According to The Adventures of Ben Gunn, his first name was "Nic", he was surgeon on Flint's crew, and Ben Gunn was his servant and friend from back home.
Job Anderson: The ship's boatswain and one of the leaders of the mutiny. He participates in the storming of the blockhouse and is killed by Gray while attacking Jim. He is probably one of Flint's old pirate hands, though this is never stated. Along with Hands and Merry, he tipped a Black Spot on Silver and forced Silver to start the mutiny before the treasure was found.
Mr. Arrow: The first mate of the Hispaniola. He is an alcoholic and is useless as a first mate. He disappears before they get to the island and his position is filled by Job Anderson. Silver had secretly given Mr. Arrow alcohol and he fell drunkenly overboard on a stormy night. In his BBC adaptation of 1977, John Lucarotti gives him the first name "Joshua". His first name was not stated in the novel.
Black Dog: Formerly a member of Flint's pirate crew, later one of Pew's companions who visits the Admiral Benbow to confront Billy Bones. He is spotted by Jim in Silver's tavern and slips out to be chased by two of Silver's men (in order to maintain the ruse that Silver and his men are not associated with him). Two fingers are missing from his left hand, and from his first appearance at the Admiral Benbow Inn, it appears Billy Bones may have previously attacked him and caused the injury.
Pew: A vicious, deadly, and sinister blind beggar who served as a member of Flint's crew. Despite his blindness, he proves to be a dangerous adversary and can even be considered a ringleader amongst his fellow crewmen. He is the second messenger to approach Billy Bones and the one to deliver the Black Spot. He is trampled to death by the horses of revenue officers riding to assist Jim and his mother after the raid on their inn. Silver claims Pew spent his share of Flint's treasure at a rate of £1,200 (equivalent to £126,153 in 2025) per year, and that for two years until his accident at the "Admiral Benbow", he begged, stole, and murdered. Stevenson avoided predictability by making the two most fearsome characters a blind man and an amputee. In the play Admiral Guinea (1892), Stevenson gives him the full name "David Pew". Stevenson's novel Kidnapped (1886) also features a dangerous blind man.
In Porto Bello Gold by Arthur D. Howden Smith, Pew fatally stabs Captain Murray, working in concert with Long John Silver. From the context, it seems that Silver means Pew when he addresses one man as "Ezra" just previously.
Mr. Dance: Chief revenue officer (titled Supervisor) who ascends with his men upon the Admiral Benbow, driving out the pirates, and saving Jim Hawkins and his mother. He then takes Hawkins to see the squire and the doctor.
Dogger: One of Mr. Dance's associates, who doubles Hawkins on his horse to the squire's house.
Captain J. Flint: A pirate who was captain of a ship called the Walrus, and who is dead before the events of the novel begin. In life he was the leader of the pirates and they refer to him often. He was the original possessor of the treasure, and buried it on the island. Long John Silver's parrot is named after him.
Abraham Gray: A ship's carpenter's mate on the Hispaniola. He is almost incited to mutiny but remains loyal to the Squire's side when asked to do so by Captain Smollett. He saves Hawkins' life by killing Job Anderson during an attack on the stockade, and he helps shoot the mutineers at the rifled treasure cache. He later escapes the island together with Jim Hawkins, Dr. Livesey, Squire Trelawney, Captain Smollett, Long John Silver, and Ben Gunn. He spends his part of the treasure on his education, marries, and becomes part owner of a full-rigged ship.
Israel Hands: The ship's coxswain and Flint's old gunner. He tries to murder Jim Hawkins, who shoots him in self-defence.
Harry: He is probably one of Flint's old pirate hands; one of those who "ran after Black Dog" at the Spyglass Inn.
Mr. and Mrs. Hawkins: The parents of Jim Hawkins. Mr. Hawkins dies early in the story.
John Hunter: A manservant of Squire Trelawney. Dr. Livesey considers him to be the most steady and capable of Livesey's servants to have in a fight. He accompanies Trelawney to the island but is later knocked unconscious in an attack on the stockade. He dies of his injuries while unconscious.
John: A mutineer who is injured while trying to storm the blockhouse. Throughout the latter narrative he is primarily referred to by Hawkins as 'the man with the bandaged head' and ends up being killed at the rifled treasure cache. He is probably one of Flint's old pirate hands, as his name is called by Blind Pew before Pew was killed at the Inn.
Dick Johnson: The youngest of the mutineers, who has a Bible. The pirates use one of its pages to make a Black Spot for Silver, only to have him predict bad luck on Dick for sacrilege. Soon becoming mortally ill with malaria, Dick ends up being marooned on the island after the deaths of George Merry and John.
Dirk: One of Flint's old pirate hands, he was a lookout for the ex-pirates in Pew's attack on the Inn
Richard Joyce: One of the manservants of Squire Trelawney who accompany the squire to the island, a mild-mannered valet inexperienced in firearms. He is shot through the head and killed by a mutineer during an attack on the stockade.
George Merry: A mutinous and hostile member of Silver's crew, who disobeys orders and occasionally challenges Silver's authority. With Anderson and Hands he launches the mutiny prematurely; he forces Silver to attack the blockhouse instead of waiting for the treasure to be found. He almost overthrew Silver's rule and forced Long John to take Jim as a hostage. Later killed at the empty cache just as he is about to kill both Silver and Hawkins.
Tom Morgan: An ex-pirate from Flint's old crew. He ends up marooned on the island with Dick and one other mutineer.
O'Brien: A mutineer who survives the attack on the blockhouse and escapes. He is later killed by Israel Hands in a drunken fight on the Hispaniola. He is referred to by Hawkins as the pirate 'with the red nightcap' throughout most of the narrative, until Hands reveals to Hawkins that the fellow was an Irishman named O'Brien.
Tom Redruth: The gamekeeper of Squire Trelawney. He accompanies the Squire to the island but is shot and mortally wounded by the mutineers as the captain's party are relocating from the ship to the stockade.
Tom: An honest sailor who is killed by Silver for refusing to join the mutiny.
Among other minor characters whose names are not revealed are the four pirates who were killed in an attack on the stockade along with Job Anderson; the pirate killed by the honest men minus Jim Hawkins the day before the attack on the stockade; the pirate killed by Ben Gunn the night before the attack; the pirate shot by Squire Trelawney when aiming at Israel Hands, who later died of his injuries; and the pirate marooned on the island along with Tom Morgan and Dick Johnson (features as Jerry Wilkins in the 1963 sequel Der Piratenkapitän, see below).
Historical allusions
Real pirates and piracy
The historian Luis Junco suggests that Treasure Island is a combination of the story of the murder of Captain George Glas aboard the Earl of Sandwich in 1765 and the taking of the ship Walrus off the island of La Graciosa near Tenerife. The pirates of La Graciosa buried their treasure there, and were subsequently all killed in a bloody battle with the Royal Navy; the treasure was never recovered.
In his book Pirates of the Carraigin, David Kelly deals with the piracy and murder of Captain Glas and others by the ship's cook and his gang aboard a ship travelling from Tenerife to London. The perpetrators of this crime also buried the considerable treasure they had stolen but most of it was later recovered. They were all executed in Dublin in 1766. In his research, Kelly showed that Stevenson was a neighbour of the named victim in Edinburgh, and so was aware from an early age of these events, which had been a scandal at the time. Stevenson and his family were members of a church congregation set up by the victim's father. Although he never visited Ireland, Stevenson based at least two other books, Kidnapped and Catriona on real crimes that were perpetrated in Dublin; these crimes were all reported in detail in The Gentleman's Magazine, published in Dublin and Edinburgh.
Other allusions to real piracy include: