We will be reading, by popular acclaim Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson.

At this link you can download several formats of the book, and I hope we'll have a lively discussion. What awaits? An adventure story on the high seas, a treasure map where X marks the spot, murder, mutiny, and an island where fortune is to be found and lost, depending on what you were looking for.

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/120

Enjoy!

For those of you in the US that receive the Syfy Channel, a new four hour mini-series of Treasure Island will air Saturday evening.

I'm almost through two thirds of the book, and it's amazing to me how naive Jim Hawkings comes off as originally. In making the story a coming-of-age story, Stevenson chooses to accentuate all the boyish qualities in Jim early on in the book while omitting them later.

I like the atmosphere of the book. You can hear Blind Pew's cane tapping, feel the pressure of his hand on Jim's shoulder when he forces him to take him to Bones. When he gets trampled to death by the horses you hear their hooves thundering on as he dies. Brilliant word pictures.

I like the atmosphere of the book. You can hear Blind Pew's cane tapping, feel the pressure of his hand on Jim's shoulder when he forces him to take him to Bones. When he gets trampled to death by the horses you hear their hooves thundering on as he dies. Brilliant word pictures.

RLS is very descriptive in the way he sets up a scene, and it adds to the quality of the book. I find that in some places, it's almost as though he doesn't trust the imagination of the reader, whereas, in other places, he's merely directing.

Yes, I know what you mean. Even when he doesn't trust your imagination though he isn't as bad a Tolkein who never knowingly used a word or two when a page or two would do it instead.

Can I send my apologies for not yet taking part in the discussion. I haven't started the novel yet as I'm snowed under at school (exam time), so I will be very late with any thoughts or contributions.

Christinap, give me Tolkien any day over Hardy regarding description!

Like Bev, I haven't started the book yet. I don't have the excuse of exam time though, just overbooked with other book groups.

I've started it, again. Had to go back and start over from the beginning, don't remember what I read three years ago when it was assigned in my Piracy class!

Very true, I don't think I've ever actually managed to finish a novel by Hardy.

Back to Treasure Island. I must admit to a sneaking fondness for Long John Silver, and isn't it interesting how he became almost a stereotype for pirates in fiction. Even in modern film like the Pirates of the Caribbean series you have a parrot on a pirates shoulder.

I think that RLS set the ultimate stereotype for prates in this novel, from how they talk, to how much they drink, to their wavering loyalties and the list can go on and on! Long John Silver represents the higher class of pirate, the ones usually found in command or serving in key positions. The rest of his crew, the slovenly, filthy, uneducated sailor type represent the typical crew member aboard a pirate vessel, the way we expect nowadays.

I would like to think that actual bona fide pirates would have had disciplined crews that would keep a ship in shipshape condition, to be able to actually plunder ships for profit.

For the most part, from what I recall from a paper I wrote on this (well, sort of - it was on order and punishment among pirates). Pirate captains had stricter rules and more effective discipline than did privateers and legitimate sailors. If I'm remembering correctly, they also were more generous and less harsh with their crew, usually having clear guidelines on who got what share of their bounty, in order to prevent mutiny.

I started Treasure Island yesterday and quickly got to "Fifteen men on the dead man's chest--Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!" This started me wondering if Stevenson's book was the first instance of this phrase which my brother and I loved to sing when we were playing pirates.

Yes, according to the article at Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Man%27s_Chest

The article goes on to say: "It was expanded in a poem, titled Derelict by Young E. Allison, published in the Louisville Courier-Journal in 1891."

I found the bit about "Dead Man's Chest" being the name of an island especially interesting. I always thought it meant the (treasure) chest of a deceased person--I never stopped to wonder how fifteen men could fit on one chest. Well, actually I probably did, but figured it was just a pirate song.

Charles Kingsley is the author of The Water-Babies which is apparently still rather well-known in the UK. His book "At Last" which Stevenson said gave him the "seed" for Treasure Island is available at Project Gutenberg.

I always thought the chest was a treasure chest as well, and as for 15 men fitting on it, I thought poetic licence, or gross exaggeration due to consumption of too much rum.

"On" perhaps signifies that they're dividing the treasure 15 ways...

Sorry, I've been a bit overworked recently. I'll have to get this going for June, as it's just around the corner.

When Jim and his friends leave the island I've often wondered why they just left the pirates marooned there. I understand they couldn't risk taking them on the ship and transporting them back to England, but by just leaving them there they've left them free to carry on being pirates. Surely they could have reported everything to some authorities close to the island who could have dealt with them. Or, if they had done that, would it have meant they would have had to surrender the treasure. Was their taking it and sharing it out entirely legal. I think Jim had something of a soft spot for Long John Silver, he did after all refuse to allow him to be harmed, and I think he wants him to somehow escape the island and find a good life somewhere.

I think that they felt some compassion for the pirates that they marooned on the island. The penalty for mutiny, they mentioned several times, was hanging, and to bring them back to England was certain death for the pirates. While they were just men, I don't think they had the stomach to be with condemned men for the entire journey back.

To the victor, the spoils. The treasure was theirs as they found it. Come to think of it, I wonder if it all really belonged to Ben Gunn, as he was the one who actually found it.

I, too, had a soft spot for Long John Silver. While a pirate at heart, and a true-and-true scoundrel, I couldn't help liking the guy. I wouldn't trust him an inch, but I still liked him.

I suppose the true owner(s) of the treasure were really the people it was stolen from to start with. In most cases that would probably have been the ruler of the country of whichever ships had been attacked.

After all those years on the island Benn Gunn wasn't about to argue ownership with the very people who were going to get him off it.

No, and I suspect that after all those years of solitude on the island, something wasn't quite right about him. Incidentally, RLS wrote a book about how Ben Gunn became a pirate, as narrated to Jim Hawkins. I think it was meant as a prequel to Treasure Island but I've never read it.

I would have thought that the entire back story could make a good book. Although quite a lot of it comes out in bits and pieces to put the whole back story together int one coherent tale would be a good adventure story. Also a sequel, how did Jim get on in life given that he had money he never expected to have. Did Ben Gunn ever adapt to life back in the world again after those years of isolation, I somehow think that either Dr Trelawney or Jim and his mother looked after him. What happened to Long John Silver after he escaped from the island. Did he settle down somewhere, or did he resume pirating. It's a book that, although a perfect "stand alone" leaves enough unanswered questions that you have to feel a sequel was at least thought about.

It's been a few years since I last read this book. I reckon there would have been a lot less trouble if Mr Trelawney could have kept his mouth shut about the treasure when hiring crew for the journey. At first he even blindly trusted Long John to help out, as a result a couple of trustworthy men were sacked and a bunch of pirates hired instead.

I personally admired Abraham Gray who, although initially persuaded to support the pirates, later still did the right thing. After their return he had a share in the fortune, got married, had a career - all this is so much better than being left on the island.

As I read the book in Estonian, I found Captain Flint's remarks creepier than they sound to me in English. There he yells: "Piastrid! Piastrid!" It somehow feels more sinister than 'pieces of eight'.

I think Jim Hawkins is a great hero, but in my mind, Long John is more well-known (to people who haven't read the book). I always love the apple barrel scene though. I've always loved this book.

Got to agree with you about Mr Trelawney. I would have thought though that it might not have been that easy to recruit a crew in those times. Although no exact time line is given I've always assumed the 1750s (ish) which could coincide with us being at war with France, so the Navy would have been recruiting by fair means and foul. They would certainly have been after anyone with sailing experience.

That might have meant you needed the lure of treasure to get a crew to sign on for what was bound to be a dangerous voyage. In a lot of ways they would have been better off with the Navy, regular guaranteed pay and although still dangerous you weren't necessarily going to be on a ship that saw action.

I like the apple barrel scene too, and also when Jim had to sail the ship all alone while taking advice from a bloodthirsty pirate. Jim's one courageous lad!