كم أعشق هذه الرواية كانت أول مسلسل كرتوني أتابعه (مانجا ياباني) و أنا دون السادسة من عمري .. بعد ذلك قرأتها .............. مازلت أتذكرها و مازالت ترن في أذني كلمات ستيفنسون
(خمسة عشر رجلاً ماتوا من أجل صندوق)

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وقعت أحداث القصة في القرن 18 في منطقة ساحلية إنجليزية. جيم هوكينز صبي صغير له نمر أليف اسمه بنبو

كان جيم وأمه يديران شؤون نزل الأميرال (بنبو ) منذ أن توفي أبوه في تحطم سفينته. يقرر الإقامة هناك بحار يسمي نفسه القبطان يدعى (بيلي بونز) .


و بعد سلسلة من الأحداث المروعة تؤدي إلى وفاة القبطان، تاركاً لجيم خريطة تقود إلى كنز القبطان (فلينت) الأسطوري.



بمساعدة الدكتور ليفزي (( القاضي ))والسيد تريلوني، يستطيع جيم



إيجاد سفينة شراعية وطاقم بحري للذهاب وراء الكنز.....
وفي مدينة بريستول القريبة، يضمون إليهم الطباخ ذو الساق الواحدة جون سيلفر، والقبطان سمولت وغيرهم......

لكن مع بداية الرحلة يدرك جيم أن الأمور ليست كما تبدو...خصوصاً عندما يلتقي بجون سيلفر و ببغاؤه الذي كان غالباً ما يجلس على كتفه والذي يكتشف جيم بعد ذلك أنه زعيم القراصنة و كان يبحث عن بيلي ليسرق منه خريطة الكنز...و أدّعى أنه طباخ ليستولي على الخريطة برفقة باقي القراصنة الذين أدعوا أنهم بحارة...

Younger readers may be put off by the older style of this book and the leisurely way in which it begins. It's worth a read. Pirates, treasure maps, friendships, treachery, and peculiar old hermits. What more could you ask of a book? Oh, and yes, Long John Silver!

Treasure Island is arguably one of the most influential tales in the world of fiction. Every pirate stereotype that we take for granted these days we can see the foundation somewhere in this magic tale. Approaching this story; I am quite lucky that I knew nothing about the plot except that there was a map where X marked the spot showcasing Captain Flint's legendary treasure. I went into the task of reading this like a happy youth, wide-eyed looking forward to experiencing a legendary story for the first time without being hindered with prior knowledge of the narrative, the characters, the pace and the plot twists.

So the story goes something like this. An alcoholic ex-pirate Captain spends his days in a local bar drinking himself to death whilst singing jolly pirate songs. "Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum" etc... He, unfortunately, passes away and leaves a chest which contains a secret map amongst other treasures. The map is highly sought after by all the wrong people. Our 1st person perspective young superstar Jim Hawkin's finds the map and speaks to his friends Dr. Livesey and a squire, Mr. Trelawney and they decide to venture to this mystical treasure island to hunt for said treasure.

Leaving from Bristol, they gather a ships worth of pirates and hands. Experienced in their own ways but none more so than pleasant, pub-owning ship's cook Long John Silver. So off they go on this adventure. They get the treasure and go home and live happily ever after. But, that obviously didn't happen because that would not make a legendary story.

The main protagonist, Jim is a great character. This is typically seen as a children's book (although some of the sea and pirate terminology is quite specific and complex) and having the first person perspective shown from the view of a young kid adds to the remarkableness of the story. The fact Jim is a young man who performs extraordinary deeds, often going against the odds on the Hispaniola (the trusty vessel that takes them to treasure island) or the island itself amongst hardened sea-faring men means we really have his back and support his deeds throughout the tale. We feel close to him because of how well Stevenson writes this character. Every time the plot progresses, it is because of an amazing deed that Jim has done, often on his own back without the consultation of the most senior members of the group. We route for him every second of the way because he is us.

Things don't work out smoothly when they get to the Island. A divide occurs. Mutiny some might say. A split is presented so Jim, Dr, Squire and a few trusted men are on one side. Old pirates who were part of Captain Flint's crew rally under who we thought was a nice dude. Long John Silver.

He is the most complex character in this short book. Peg legged, parrot on his shoulder "pieces of eight" are some of his characterisations that you will probably see some 12-year-old child imitating this Halloween. You never quite know where you stand with Silver. He starts off seeming good. Jim overhears his plot of mutiny whilst hiding in a barrel. At that point, he is portrayed as purely evil but towards the end, he seems more human and complex. Sticking up for Jim Hawkins when the rest of his sea mates want to kill the poor lad.

Other notable characters are Ben Gunn, the Robinson Crusoe-esque marooned island dweller and Dr. Livesey. It is ingeniously written that in such a short book we can care about so many of the players and their complexity is unrivaled.

There are lots of cool scenes. Shootouts on the Island between the two factions. Jim vs. Israel Hands. Meeting Ben Gunn and when Jim goes back to the safe haven of the wooden castle expecting to regroup with his friends but alas... it is not to be.

I will end this review with a few pirate clichés that frequent Treasure Island. "Shiver my timbers" "Shipshape" "Jolly Roger" & "Pieces of Eight" come to mind.

I really enjoyed this. So different to Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde that I have previously read by Stevenson. Yet, that makes a good author, being able to flaunt his linguistic skills in various genres making tales such as these which will last forever.

Cap'n Tivendale at your service.
www.youandibooks.wordpress.com

One of the most popular pirate fiction stories ever told. It introduces so many tropes we still associate with pirates to this day. This speaks volumes about how great this story actually is.


We all know the story. Jim Hawkins is a young boy who receives a treasure map from Billy Bones, a pirate whose former associates very much like to get their hands on said map. A crew is assembled to go on the adventure of a lifetime. But the ship’s crew are not who they say they are.


Overall, it’s a pretty simple treasure hunt adventure featuring pirates, with a few solid twists. But it’s just so gripping and so easy to read. This is an absolutely incredible feat considering how long ago this book was written. And it also features some strong themes like greed and friendship. Honestly, if you like pirates this classic book is simply a must read.

“Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest—
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!
Drink and the devil had done for the rest—
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!”

With this shanty ringing in the air begins the best pirate adventure.
Follow young Jim Hawkins from his home in the Admiral Benbow Inn on the English coast, through the deep seas of the Atlantic, to Treasure Island. Late in the voyage he discovers that most of the ship's crew are pirates with the worst one of all (Long John Silver) appearing to be his close friend.

image:

The Treasure Map
The paper had been sealed in several places with a thimble by way of seal; the very thimble, perhaps, that I had found in the captain’s pocket. The doctor opened the seals with great care, and there fell out the map of an island, with latitude and longitude, soundings, names of hills and bays and inlets, and every particular that would be needed to bring a ship to a safe anchorage upon its shores. It was about nine miles long and five across, shaped, you might say, like a fat dragon standing up, and had two fine land-locked harbours, and a hill in the centre part marked “The Spy-glass.” There were several additions of a later date, but above all, three crosses of red ink—two on the north part of the island, one in the southwest—and beside this last, in the same red ink, and in a small, neat hand, very different from the captain’s tottery characters, these words: “Bulk of treasure here.”

Promises kept?
“Ah,” said Silver, “it were fortunate for me that I had Hawkins here. You would have let old John be cut to bits, and never given it a thought, doctor.”

“Not a thought,” replied Dr. Livesey cheerily.

A likeable rogue
Long John Silver is bad, but has a heart of gold. He had killed many men in order to keep his promises and his chance of getting his share of pirate gold.

image:  

Enjoy!

It's a classic and rightly so. A tale of pirates, the high seas, and of course a treasure map created by the buccaneer Captain Flint.

The many memorable characters include Long John Silver, Jim Hawkins, Ben Gunn, Billy Bones, and Blind Pew.

Plus a Black Spot or two.

Robert Louis Stevenson's original title for this book was 'The Sea Cook' as that was Long John Silver's occupation. The book was written in Braemar and Davos in 1881 and first serialised in the magazine Young Folks between October 1881 and January 1882 before being published in book form in 1883.

Essentially what happens is that Billy Bones - a member of the crew of The Walrus, the ship of Captain Flint - stays at The Admiral Benbow inn run by Jim Hawkins's parents. When some of Billy Bones's ex-crewmates come visiting to find the treasure map he has in his sea chest, Jim finds the treasure map first and informs Dr Livesey and Squire Trelawney of this. They all proceed to Bristol, obtain a vessel called The Hispaniola, and set sail for Treasure Island.

Of the crew who set out, only 5 return.

I last read Treasure Island as a child. So glad I reread it. It’s a wonderful pirate adventure story. Jim Hawkins, Long John Silver, Blind Pew, the squire, Ben Gunn and the others.

The eccentric angry Captain staying at Jim’s fathers inn the Admiral Benbow and being discovered by his estranged companions. The black spot. The discovery of the treasure map and the voyage out. Then the betrayal, fights, Jim always in the thick of it either in an Apple barrel, up a mast or wondering what Silver will do next. He swaps sides more than a liberal democrat on speed.

Treasure Island is a true classic and I plan to watch the 1934 black and white movie on YouTube in the near future.

Why I chose to read this book:
1. I bought my copy at a thrift shop because I thought it might be an interesting read; and,
2. February 2024 is my "Classics" Month!

Praises:
1. such a riveting plot! Right from the get-go, I enjoyed the building of suspense and was perfectly content with the ending. Jim Hawkins's encounter with pirate Israel Hands on board the Hispaniola was especially intense for me! and,
2. an interesting cast of characters! Upon finding a treasure map, Jim Hawkins, a 12-(or 13)-year-old boy, narrates most of this story about his adventure with a fascinating crew of men as they leave England and sail to a deserted island in the hopes of finding buried treasure. The characters are, for the most part, complex, especially Long John Silver. I (and Jim) didn't know what to make of him!

Niggles:
1. sometimes the conversational vocabulary was quite confusing to me. Often, I didn't have a clue as to their location near or on the island! This made the story a little plodding for me; and,
2. many distracting conventions! Occasionally, the use of capitals was incorrect (was that just poor editing in my particular edition?) And the endless use of hyphens - they were everywhere! Sometimes they made sense, but often other punctuation marks (e.g. commas, semi-colons, periods) would have been more appropriate.

Overall Thoughts:
This was a much more enjoyable read for me than Robinson Crusoe! The suspenseful plot was on point, and the characters were entertaining. Amazingly, author Robert Louis Stevenson never employed any profanity nor racist remarks, even though it was published in 1882.
Overall, I found this adventure story, full of treachery and duplicity, quite delightful!

Never trust a pirate.

I really love pirates… even though they might not be the nicest of people they do have a lotta charm. Plus, since it’s summer it seems fitting, goes with the theme.

After reading… and reading… and reading some more I decided that this wasn’t what I expected. I was looking for more adventure and the book was lacking it. I decided to finish it though because it’s a classic, and we all must read your classics!, but boy was it boring.

Treasures, tropical islands, and rum soaked trope creating overkills

Amazingly good, dense, and complex writing for its time
I don´t want to say that professional college course creative writing is what makes US and UK authors so outstanding, but well, which other countries produce so many amazing fictional works? Before, there were a few classic pearls by authors that weren´t just able to write good stories, but understood the most important ingredient of compelling art

Mixing character and plot
From the beginning, there are more and more unfolding open questions, mysteries, Chekhovs, and MacGuffins that are always fused with character motivation. This today totally normal thing was outstanding in the old days and is a reason why many classics are average, boring, or just simply bad. Take the terrible other island classics like Robinson Crusoe
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
or Lord of the Flies
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7...
They both don´t just suck at being mind blowing, but have stupid messages and ideologies integrated the authors want to get into the readers' brains. In contrast,

Stephenson understood that there should be just a high and good entertainment level
He creates a complex crew of characters, always throws them in a small territory they can´t escape from, ships, forts, a treasure hunt, and slowly escalates the whole thing. Because I´m a fan of epigenetics and the sociocultural evolution of fictional concepts, I could already search, find, and see the progress of a once spread trope idea in

So many other works inspired by it
Be it horror, fantasy, or my favorite genre to rule them all, sci fi, they all developed new ideas about how to find the magic stone, the skull of the necromantic god emperor, or the alien artifact. And what leaves me stunned in even more awe is that, in the other time direction, a few thousand years ago the first ancient storytellers were inspired by the totally forgotten tales of primitive starving stone age artists. Who probably invented the idea of a hero's journey to find the fattest and most delicious mammoth.

Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...

English (Treasure Island) / Italiano

«Squire Trelawney, Dr. Livesey, and the rest of these gentlemen having asked me to write down the whole particulars about Treasure Island, from the beginning to the end, keeping nothing back but the bearings of the island, and that only because there is still treasure not yet lifted, I take up my pen in the year of grace 17_ and go back to the time when my father kept the Admiral Benbow inn and the brown old seaman with the sabre cut first took up his lodging under our roof»

Perfect incipit for an adventure novel, able to introduce the whole story in a few lines and, at the same time, generate in the reader that tantalizing curiosity that invites you to read quickly the pages, thinking "let's settle down, you're going to see some things".

However, I confess that for me the novel by Robert Louis Stevenson, reread years later (this time is a bedtime reading for my daughter), has lost part of its appeal. Nevertheless, my daughter appreciated it, probably it's a novel that best suits the tastes of children and young people. In fact, Stevenson has never hidden that the inspiration to the novel came frome his adopted son, Lloyd, with whom in a rainy afternoon drew an island for fun, fantasizing with him on the places about the places map and on future characters. The novel that was taking shape for the 12-year-olds boy's amusement changed in a really fun adventure. Well, then let's all sing it together:

«Fifteen men on a dead man's chest
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!»

Vote: 7,5

«Sollecitato dal conte Trelawney, dal dottor Livesey e dal resto della brigata di scrivere la storia della nostra avventura all’Isola del Tesoro, con tutti i suoi particolari, nessun escluso, salvo la posizione dell’isola. e ciò perché una parte del tesoro ci è ancora nascosta, io prendo la penna nell’anno di grazia 17… e mi rifaccio al tempo in cui mio padre teneva la locanda dell’ “Ammiraglio Benbow” e il vecchio uomo di mare dal viso sfregiato da un colpo di sciabola prese per la prima volta alloggio presso di noi»

L'incipit è di quelli perfetti per un romanzo d'avventura, in grado di introdurre in poche righe tutta la vicenda e contemporaneamente generare nel lettore quella stuzzicante curiosità che invoglia a divorare le pagine. Per la serie "mettetevi a sedere che ora ne vedrete delle belle".

Confesso però che per me il romanzo di Robert Louis Stevenson, riletto a distanza di anni (lettura serale per mia figlia), ha perso un pò del suo fascino. Mia figlia ha comunque apprezzato, probabilmente è un romanzo che meglio si adatta ai gusti di bambini e ragazzi. D'altronde Stevenson non ha mai nascosto che l'ispirazione per il romanzo gliela ha data il figlio adottivo Lloyd, con il quale in un pomeriggio di pioggia disegnò per gioco un'isola, fantasticando assieme a lui sui luoghi della mappa e sui futuri personaggi. Il racconto che prendeva forma per il divertimento di un ragazzo dodicenne si è poi trasformato in una gran bella avventura. E allora cantiamo tutti insieme:

«Quindici uomini sulla cassa del morto,
yo-ho-ho, e una bottiglia di rum!»

Voto: 7,5

YO-HO-HO AND A BOTTLE OF RUM!!!

This is the iconic novel about pirates that it stands as the best example in this topic and easily one of the most adapted to other media novels in any genre.

I can remember having watched several adaptations, live action films, animated movies, even an animated film using animals as the characters, there is the Muppets' one, a Japanese anime TV series, an European mini-series taking the story to outer space starring Anthony Quinn, the animated remake of that version by Disney and the current Starz channel prequel TV series "Black Sails". Just to mention the ones that I have watched but there are a lot of more adaptations.

While the topic of pirates is a popular one, I think that there aren't much novels about it. At least not examples really worthy of reading them. Obviously there are some here and there, but taking in account how much options one has in other topics in literature, pirates has been a concept seldom touched with success.

However, this novel was able to keep on the mind of everybody the storytelling appeal of the topic of pirates inspiring successes on other media such as Japanese anime "Captain Harlock" and live actions films of "Pirates of the Caribbean".

For all that and its own merit, Treasure Island keeps retaining the crown as the best novel about pirates.

Characters like Jim Hawkins, Billy Bones, Ben Gunn, Captain Smollett and of course, Long John Silver have become iconic in the universe of literature. Even they have been so admired that other authors couldn't resist to makes homages/mentions of them on their own novels, such examples like on Peter Pan.

Its appealing is obvious depending the readers, many young ones can't resist to be amazed by Jim Hawkins who is 14 years old but he is able to keep up in the middle of adult characters and even being a key character in the success of the adventure.

To readers and writers of all ages, certainly the character of Long John Silver stands out as one of the best developed characters in the history of literature becoming a model to many following similar ones. He is able to do ruthless things but he has a code, he has limits, and not matter that he is not a nice person, there are things that he never will do and for that, he is a complicated and truly interesting character to read about.

Not matter how was on real life, Robert Louis Stevenson, the author, was able to show a romantic picture of pirates' world with now iconic elements like islands with treasures, maps with "x"'s, fearful papers with a black spot, peglegs, eye patches, parrots on shoulders, but above all, he had no doubt to show how dangerous and murderous can be real pirates.