Treasure Island [Paperback]

Masterfully crafted,Treasure Islandis a stunning yarn of piracy on the fiery tropic seas—an unforgettable tale of treachery that embroils a host of legendary swashbucklers from honest young Jim Hawkins to sinister, two-timing Israel Hands to evil incarnate, blind Pew. But above all,Treasure Islandis a complex study of good and evil, as embodied by that hero-villain, Long John Silver; the merry unscrupulous buccaneer-rogue whose greedy lust for gold cannot help but win the heart of every one who ever longed for romance, treasure, and adventure.

Since its publication in 1883,Treasure Islandhas provided an enduring literary model for such eminent writers as Anthony Hope, Graham Greene, and Jorge Luis Borges. As David Daiches wrote: “Robert Louis Stevenson transformed the Victorian boys’ adventure into a classic of its kind.”"Over Treasure Island I let my fire die in winter without knowing I was freezing."Throughout his life, Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was tormented by poor health. Yet despite frequent physical collapses–mainly due to constant respiratory illness–he was an indefatigable writer of novels, poems, essays, letters, travel books, and children’s books. He was born on November 13, 1850, in Edinburgh, of a prosperous family of lighthouse engineers. Though he was expected to enter the family profession, he studied instead for the Scottish bar. By the time he was called to the bar, however, he had already begun writing seriously, and he never actually practiced law. In 1880, against his family’s wishes, he married an American divorcée, Fanny Vandegrift Osbourne, who was ten years his senior; but the family was soon reconciled to the match, and the marriage proved a happy one.

All his life Stevenson traveled–often in a desperate quest for health. He and Fanny, having married in California and spent their honeymoon by an abandoned silver mine, traveled blƒ7