PART I The Old Buccaneer
1. The Old Sea-dog at the Admiral Benbow
2. Black Dog Appears and Disappears
3. The Black Spot
4. The Sea-chest
5. The Last of the Blind Man
6. The Captain’s Papers
PART II The Sea Cook
7. I Go to Bristol
8. At the Sign of the Spy-glass
9. Powder and Arms
10. The Voyage
11. What I Heard in the Apple Barrel
12. Council of War
PART III My Shore Adventure
13. How My Shore Adventure Began
14. The First Blow
15. The Man of the Island
PART IV The Stockade
16. Narrative Continued by the Doctor: How the Ship was
Abandoned
17. Narrative Continued by the Doctor: The Jolly-boat’s Last
Trip
18. Narrative Continued by the Doctor: End of the First Day’s
Fighting
19. Narrative Resumed by Jim Hawkins: The Garrison in the
Stockade
20. Silver’s Embassy
21. The Attack
PART V My Sea Adventure
22. How My Sea Adventure Began
23. The Ebb-tide Runs
24. The Cruise of the Coracle
25. I Strike the Jolly Roger
26. Israel Hands
27. “Pieces of Eight”
PART VI Captain Silver
28. In the Enemy’s Camp
29. The Black Spot Again
30. On Parole
31. The Treasure-hunt—Flint’s Pointer
32. The Treasure-hunt—The Voice Among the Trees
33. The Fall of a Chieftain
34. And Last
Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson (November 13, 1850–-December 3, 1894) was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer. His most famous works are Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. One day Simon Barker-Benfield was yet again rereading Treasure Island when he decided to find out more about the Admiral Benbow mentioned in the book. That led to questions about other topics, and then to more questions, and then to research notes that now fill boxes, and now to this annotated edition of the book he has been reading since he was ten. He also has written on the archaeology, culture, and history of the Timucua people of Florida; Spanish Florida; and the eighteenth-century American naturalists John Bartram and his son William. He lives in the Brandywine Valley of southeastern Pennsylvania, where his partner, Nancy Needham, and their two dogs strive to make him a better person. A former newspaper reporter and corporate executive, Barker-Benfield provides editorial support for Nancy’s education projects in twelve countries. Louis Rhead (1857-1926) was born in England but found success in America as a Brooklyn-based children’s book illustrator and poster artist.
The classic tale of pirates and their buried loot is enriched with
explanatory footnotes, diagrams and illustrations in this
fascinating annotated edition.
First published in 1883, Stevenson’s Treasure Island narrates the
adventures of Jim Hawkins, an English teenager who in the 1750s
discovers a map to a fabulous pirate treasure buried on a desert
island; the ensuing voyage embroils him in a mutiny, fierce
musket-and-cutlass fights and a twisty relationship with the pirate
Long John Silver, a charismatic figure of noble courage and
dastardly treachery. Featuring taut suspense, brisk action, an
iconic coming-of-age theme and colorful characters, Treasure Island
became the template for later genre pieces such as Pirates of the
Caribbean. Barker-Benfield’s engaging introduction and
comprehensive margin notes and sidebars explain many of the story’s
details to an audience less familiar with age-of-sail conventions.
Much of the narrative hinges on the handling of sailing ships, and
he provides detailed, interesting accounts of their construction,
rigging, navigation, protocols and jargon, which help explicate
important plot points. He also delves into the evolving culture of
the early-modern Atlantic-Caribbean region and the history,
lifestyles and indispensable accouterments of pirates: Silver’s
loquacious parrot is probably an African gray, we learn, while the
refrain “yo ho ho, and a bottle of rum” prompts a disquisition on
that beverage’s production and neurological effects. Intriguing
conundrums and inconsistencies in the text are teased out; latitude
and longitude figures put Treasure Island at one of four improbably
cold locales, the author notes, while Silver’s life history makes
his claimed age of 50 years a tad optimistic. Throughout,
Barker-Benfield’s notes adroitly translate the richer flights of
buccaneer lingo into respectable English. (“I’m a poor old hulk on
a lee shore” is a pirate’s “dramatic way of saying he is nearing
the end of his life.”) There are also detailed maps of the
Caribbean, reproductions of portraits of real-life pirates and sea
captains and meticulously detailed diagrams of ships, cannons and
nautical equipment; these, along with Rhead’s atmospheric drawings
of scenes from the story, add an exquisite visual dimension to the
original text.
A sumptuous edition of a masterpiece that will captivate both
youngsters and older fans interested in the history and lore
underpinning Stevenson’s yarn.
*Kirkus Reviews*
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