When was treasure island originally published

He and his mother hide and watch the pirates ransack the inn. At last, the pirates are chased away by revenue officers on horseback, who accidentally trample Pew to death. Jim asks the officers to take him to Dr Livesey, who is visiting Squire Trelawney. Thrilled by the possibility of adventure and buried gold, the Squire commissions a ship, the Hispaniola.

Jim bids farewell to his mother and arrives in Bristol, where the ship is docked. The Squire has meanwhile hired a cook for the voyage, Long John Silver, who has chosen most of the rest of the crew. Silver is a charming but morally ambiguous character who switches allegiance whenever it suits him.

Jim carries a message to Silver, only to find that Black Dog is also in the same tavern! Just before the journey begins, the upright and serious Captain Smollett warns the Squire and Livesey that he does not trust the crew.

They all know it is a treasure-seeking voyage, although this is meant to be a secret. During most of the voyage, his fears seem unfounded and the crew seems to be happy and efficient. Jim sneaks ashore and hears in the distance one of the honest men being slain at the hands of the pirates. He also sees Silver murder a man who he was unable to convince to join his mutiny. Terrified that he will be next, Jim runs into the woods.

Gunn reveals that Flint had buried the treasure on the island with the help of six men, whom he had then killed. Gunn had returned to the island with a group of others three years before.

Gunn, who is affable but slightly mad from his long solitude, has sought the treasure ever since. He now offers to help Jim and his friends if they will give him a passage off the island.

Jim returns with his news about Gunn and finds a battle has already depleted their numbers. Surprisingly, Silver offers a truce but the Captain refuses. Another battle leaves more dead and the Captain wounded. He steers the boat to the Hispaniola , where he cuts the anchor cables. Hands promises he will help Jim sail the ship safely to shore if Jim will bind his wound and bring him some drink. Jim complies, but then sees he is not as badly wounded as he claims — and that he has a knife.

Once they sail to shore, Hands attacks. Jim escapes by climbing the rigging. Jim shoots and Hands falls to the water and dies. Jim now returns to shore. Pirate crews unlike the crews of naval or merchant ships, who served under the strict rule of a captain and officers they had not chosen were generally democratic, electing their captains and reserving the right to depose them.

Thus, Stevenson's pirates, freely choosing the redoubtable Silver as their leader, are off on a last grand adventure with a captain whom they trust, or so they must believe. Jim Hawkins himself would not have been an unusual boy in the English or colonial New England eighteenth century, although he may seem to the twenty-first-century reader remarkably free from the normal responsibilities of a twelve- or thirteen-year-old.

An innkeeper's son, he would have expected to inherit his father's trade and would have been educated early in the skills to pursue it. Those that required schooling — reading, writing, and arithmetic — he would have acquired by age ten or so; the others would be learned on the job, and especially with his father ill and the inn not particularly successful he would have been needed there to do as much work as he could. At the same time, an intelligent boy like Jim, with a man like Dr.

Livesey to befriend him, may have had the opportunity to read adventure stories and see traveling actors perform as Jim hints that he has done. At thirteen or nearly so, he would have been considered a man in all but physical strength, and, given the prospect of going on a voyage like the one Squire Trelawney invites him to join, he would likely have jumped at the chance — probably the only one he would get in his lifetime.

He could take the voyage, however, only if his mother would have other help in running the family business, as the generous Trelawney offers. So the reader may be assured that, although Treasure Island is in some ways more romantic than entirely realistic, it is true to its time and place.

But is this a book that you, in your time and place, can still enjoy? Yes, and although some students may tend to resist so simple a truth, there's no better reason for reading Treasure Island than enjoyment. To comb it for learning experiences or moral guidelines would be to miss the point completely, although the novel does yield some of each.

To "deconstruct" it would be possible but equally pointless and would tend to mutilate a lively and live book. Moreover, to view Treasure Island solely as a classic text or an example of fine popular writing although it is both of these or especially as a period piece for it is certainly not typical of the popular fiction of the late nineteenth century is to do it an injustice.

While many best-selling novels published in the s are difficult or nearly unreadable today, Treasure Island has never lost its seductive power, from the first page, to engage a willing reader — a strength derived from Stevenson's narrative genius and the sheer, sure revelation of his characters through their language. No summary can do Treasure Island justice, and to rely on a summary without reading the text is to do oneself no favor.

However, if its nautical and other terms are unfamiliar, the glossaries included in the Critical Commentaries section can help, as can a dictionary. And if you have trouble following the closely described action, the summaries and commentaries can help, too.

To use a metaphor based in the novel, any reader who allows himself or herself to be swept out on the tide of Stevenson's narrative, and who then comes about and sets sail to windward, aided as need be by compass and chart, is in for a memorable and excellent adventure.

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