Treasure Island

Introduction

‘Tomorrow I’m going to Bristol,’ said Mr Trelawney. ‘I’m going to buy a ship and find sailors. Jim, you and Dr Livesey are going to come with me to look for the treasure!’

Jim Hawkins works in his father’s inn by the sea. One day an old sailor comes to stay. He watches the sea and the ships. He is ill.

He is afraid. But what - or who - is he afraid of?

Very soon Jim understands, because the old man has a map. A lot of people are interested in that map - and some of them are very dangerous people. Jim Hawkins is going to meet them when he sails in the Hispaniola to Treasure Island. It will be a journey with many difficulties . . .

Robert Louis Stevenson was born in 1850 in Edinburgh, Scotland and began writing when he was a boy. He finished his first book when he was sixteen.

He went to many different countries in his life. He was often dangerously ill and he wanted to find a place with warm weather where he could live and do his writing. In 1888, he went by ship to the Pacific islands, and after 1890 he lived on the island of

Samoa, with his wife, mother and son. The Samoans called him

‘Tusitala’ - ‘the story-teller’.

He wrote many different books and stories. Treasure Island

(1883) is his most famous book but Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

(1886) is also very well-known. Stevenson died in 1894 on

Samoa.

Chapter 1 Jim Hawkins’ Story I

My father had an inn near the sea. It was a quiet place. One day, an old man came to our door. He was tall and strong, and his face was brown. His old blue coat was dirty and he had a big old box with him. He looked at the inn, then he looked at the sea.

My father came to the door.

At first the old man did not speak. He looked again at the sea, and at the front of the inn.

‘I like this place,’ he said. ‘Do many people come here?’

‘No,’ said my father.

‘I’m going to stay here,’ said the old man. ‘I want a bed and food. I like watching the sea and the ships. You can call me

Captain.’

He threw some money on the table. ‘That’s for my bed and my food,’ he said.

And so the old captain came to stay with us. He was always quiet. In the evenings he sat in the inn and in the day he watched the sea and the ships.

One day he spoke to me. ‘Come here, boy,’ he said, and he gave me some money. ‘Take this, and look out for a sailor with one leg.’