Treasure Island Analysis - eNotes.com Treasure Island Analysis link Link Admiral Benbow Inn Admiral Benbow Inn. Public inn owned by Jim Hawkins’s parents near Black Hill Cove, an isolated and sheltered bay on Devon’s north coast, along the road to Bristol, that is an ideal place for smugglers to come ashore. Tucked between somber hills and the rocky cove, up whose cliffs the surf roars during storms, the inn is remote from even the nearest hamlet, Kitt’s Hole, and conveys an atmosphere of unrelieved loneliness and foreboding. The novel opens with a menacing figure appearing at the inn and demanding a room. Later unmasked as the pirate captain Billy Bones, he long overstays his welcome and so tyrannizes the inn that other guests leave, and Jim’s father weakens and dies an early death. Having chosen the Benbow Inn because of its isolation, Bones lives in daily fear of being discovered by fellow pirates; after they finally appear, he dies of apoplexy, and Jim and his mother flee the inn before the other pirates return—but not before they open his seachest and find a map of Treasure Island.

Despite the fear Jim experiences at the inn, he later dreams of returning there while he is experiencing even worse dangers on Treasure Island. Admiral Benbow Inn is aptly named after a late seventeenth century English admiral, John Benbow, who won renown for fighting pirates in the West Indies and for his heroic death in action against the French after the captains serving under him mutinied. *Bristol *Bristol. Busy port city in southwestern England where the expedition of the Hispaniola begins and ends. Bristol is also the home of the crafty one-legged pirate Long John Silver, who signs on for the voyage as ship’s cook. Silver owns a tavern in Bristol called the Spy-glass. While waiting for the Hispaniola to sail, he befriends Jim, accompanies him around Bristol’s docks and teaches him about ships and the sea. To Jim, Bristol is an exciting portal to the world outside, and he says though he “had lived by the shore all my life, I seemed never to have been near the sea till then.” Hispaniola Hispaniola. Ship on which Jim and his companions sail from England to Treasure Island and back.

Apart from the fact that the Hispaniola is a sturdy two-hundred-ton schooner that sails well and initially has a crew of about twenty men, Stevenson describes little about the ship and even less about its voyages across the Atlantic, thereby avoiding details of navigation with which he was not familiar. Nevertheless, he makes the ship the setting for several of the novel’s most thrilling moments. Even before its voyage begins, the captain expresses concern about the trustworthiness of the crew—which has been assembled by Squire Trelawney—so Jim’s companions “garrison” the after part of the ship in case trouble develops. A key moment at sea occurs when Jim innocently climbs inside a large apple barrel on deck and overhears the crew plotting mutiny. The mutiny itself occurs ashore, after the ship anchors off Treasure Island, and the mutineers seize the ship only after the captain’s party go ashore to hole up in an old stockade. From that point, the ship becomes a kind of albatross; it is almost useless to the mutineers, who cannot navigate it, and is of limited use to the captain’s party because of their small numbers.

The latter choose to take their chances ashore, confident that a relief ship will eventually find them. Meanwhile, the mutineers plunder the ship’s stores, get drunk, and fight among themselves. Their recklessness later allows Jim to retake the ship single-handedly and even work it around to the opposite side of the island, where he beaches it and kills a mutineer in a desperate fight in the ship’s rigging. Treasure Island Treasure Island. Small, uninhabited island, located in or near the West Indies—the classic center of pirate activity. The novel’s plot is driven by a map of the island revealing where a pirate named Captain Flint buried the fabulous treasure that Jim and his companions cross the Atlantic to find. Indeed, Stevenson created the map before he wrote the novel around it. About nine miles long and five miles wide, the island is “like a fat dragon standing up,” with fine, nearly landlocked harbors at each end. Names of the island’s features make it resemble a ship: Three prominent hills, spread out in a line, are called Fore-mast. Main-mast (also called Spy-glass), and Mizzen-mast.

Other features include Haulbowline Head, Captain Kidd’s anchorage, and Skeleton Island in the south harbor. Although the map itself provides exact latitude and longitude, Jim never reveals the island’s exact location to readers because “there is still treasure not yet lifted.” The general direction that the Hispaniola sails to reach the island and remarks at the end of Jim’s narrative about the “nearest port in Spanish America,” where there are “shore boats full of Negroes and Mexican Indians,” suggest that the island is in the Caribbean Sea off Mexico. However, few real islands exist in that region, and the fact that Jim finds a castaway who has been alone on Treasure Island for three years suggests that the island is distant from shipping lanes. It is thus probably best to dismiss questions about the island’s location and accept it as a wholly imaginary creation. Indeed, before embarking on the expedition, Jim spends hours poring over the map of the island and fantasizing about the “savages” and “dangerous animals” he will find there. What he does find is unrealistic topography and flora and fauna uncharacteristic of the West Indies. Apart from its hot climate, the island could be located almost anywhere.

Shortly after the Hispaniola reaches Treasure Island, its crew members separate into mutinous and loyalist parties, and the balance of the narrative traces their skirmishes and maneuverings around the island. The loyalists under Captain Smollett take possession of a well-fortified stockade built by Flint’s men over a freshwater spring, while the mutineers weaken themselves by camping in a feverish swamp. Start Free Trial Start your free trial with eNotes to access more than 30,000 study guides. Get help with any book. Treasure Island - The Full Wiki The Full Wiki Note: Many of our articles have direct quotes from sources you can cite, within the Wikipedia article! This article doesn't yet, but we're working on it! See more info or our list of citable articles . Related top topics Top rankings for Treasure Island 59th For other uses, see Treasure Island (disambiguation) . Treasure Island London: Cassell and Company (Now part of Orion Publishing Group ) Publication date 1883 Treasure Island is an adventure novel by Robert Louis Stevenson , narrating a tale of "pirates and buried gold".

First published as a book in 1883, it was originally serialized in the children's magazine Young Folks between 1881-82 under the title The Sea Cook, or Treasure Island. Traditionally considered a coming-of-age story , it is an adventure tale known for its atmosphere, character and action, and also a wry commentary on the ambiguity of morality—as seen in Long John Silver —unusual for children's literature then and now. It is one of the most frequently dramatised of all novels. The influence of Treasure Island on popular perception of pirates is vast, including treasure maps with an "X", schooners , the Black Spot , tropical islands , and one-legged seamen with parrots on their shoulders . Contents 8 External links History Stevenson was 30 years old when he started to write Treasure Island, and it would be his first success as a novelist. The first fifteen chapters were written at Braemar in the Scottish Highlands in 1881. It was a cold and rainy late-summer and Stevenson was with five family members on holiday in a cottage. Young Lloyd Osbourne , Stevenson's stepson, passed the rainy days painting with watercolours.

[1] [2] Remembering the time, Lloyd wrote: “ ... busy with a box of paints I happened to be tinting a map of an island I had drawn. Stevenson came in as I was finishing it, and with his affectionate interest in everything I was doing, leaned over my shoulder, and was soon elaborating the map and naming it. I shall never forget the thrill of Skeleton Island, Spyglass Hill, nor the heart-stirring climax of the three red crosses! And the greater climax still when he wrote down the words "Treasure Island" at the top right-hand corner! And he seemed to know so much about it too — the pirates, the buried treasure, the man who had been marooned on the island ... . "Oh, for a story about it", I exclaimed, in a heaven of enchantment ... . [3] ” Within three days of drawing the map for Lloyd, Stevenson had written the first three chapters, reading each aloud to his family who added suggestions. Lloyd insisted there be no women in the story which was largely held to with the exception of Jim Hawkins ' mother at the beginning of the book.

Stevenson's father took a child-like delight in the story and spent a day writing out the exact contents of Billy Bones 's sea-chest, which Stevenson adopted word-for-word; and his father suggested the scene where Jim Hawkins hides in the apple barrel. Two weeks later a friend, Dr. Alexander Japp, brought the early chapters to the editor of Young Folks magazine who agreed to publish each chapter weekly. Stevenson wrote at the rate of a chapter a day for fifteen days straight, then ran dry of words, partly due to his health. He had never earned his keep by age thirty-one, and was desperate to finish the book. He turned to the proofs, corrected them, took morning walks alone, and read other novels. As autumn came to Scotland , the Stevensons left their summer holiday retreat for London, and Stevenson was troubled with a life-long chronic bronchial condition. Concerned about a deadline they travelled in October to Davos , Switzerland where the break from work and clean mountain air did him wonders, and he was able to continue at the rate of a chapter a day and soon finished the storyline.

Map created by Robert Louis Stevenson During its initial run in Young Folks from October 1881 to January 1882, Treasure Island failed to attract attention or even increase the sales of the magazine, but when sold as a book in 1883 it soon became very popular. [4] The Prime Minister , Gladstone , was reported to have stayed up until two in the morning to finish it. Critics widely praised it. American novelist Henry James praised it as "perfect as a well-played boy's game". [5] Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote "I think Stevenson shows more genius in a page than Sir Walter Scott in a volume". Stevenson was paid 34 pounds seven shillings and sixpence for the serialization and 100 pounds for the book. Thanks to Stevenson's letters and essays, we know a great deal about his sources and inspirations. The initial catalyst was the island map, which was essentially the whole plot to him as author, he said. He mailed the map with his manuscript to the book publisher and was later told the map had been lost. He had no copy and was devastated.

To Stevenson, the map he tediously reconstructed from memory and reference to the text was never the real Treasure Island. The novel also drew from memories of works by Daniel Defoe , Edgar Allan Poe 's " The Gold-Bug ", and Washington Irving 's " Wolfert Webber ", of which Stevenson said, "It is my debt to Washington Irving that exercises my conscience, and justly so, for I believe plagiarism was rarely carried farther.. the whole inner spirit and a good deal of the material detail of my first chapters.. were the property of Washington Irving." [6] The novel At Last by Charles Kingsley was also a key inspiration. The character of Long John Silver was inspired by his real-life friend William Henley , a writer and editor, who had lost his lower leg to tuberculosis of the bone . Lloyd Osbourne described him as "..a great, glowing, massive-shouldered fellow with a big red beard and a crutch; jovial, astoundingly clever, and with a laugh that rolled like music; he had an unimaginable fire and vitality; he swept one off one's feet". In a letter to Henley after the publication of Treasure Island, Stevenson wrote "I will now make a confession.

It was the sight of your maimed strength and masterfulness that begot Long John Silver...the idea of the maimed man, ruling and dreaded by the sound, was entirely taken from you". Stevenson had never encountered real pirates: the " Golden Age of Piracy " had ended more than a century before he was born. However, his descriptions of sailing and seamen and sea life are very convincing. His father and grandfather were both lighthouse engineers and frequently voyaged around Scotland inspecting lighthouses, taking the young Robert along. Two years before writing Treasure Island he had crossed the Atlantic Ocean . So authentic were his descriptions that in 1890 William Butler Yeats told Stevenson that Treasure Island was the only book from which his seafaring grandfather had ever taken any pleasure. [7] "The effect of Treasure Island on our perception of pirates cannot be overestimated. Stevenson linked pirates forever with maps, black schooners, tropical islands, and one-legged seamen with parrots on their shoulders. The treasure map with an X marking the location of the buried treasure is one of the most familiar pirate props", [8] yet it is entirely a fictional invention which owes its origin to Stevenson's original map.

The term "Treasure Island" has passed into the language as a common phrase, and is often used as a title for games, rides, places, etc. Plot summary Jim Hawkins sitting in the apple-barrel, listening to the pirates The novel is divided into 6 parts and 34 chapters: Jim Hawkins is the narrator of all these except for chapters 16-18 which are narrated by the Doctor. The novel opens in a seaside village in south-west England in the mid- 18th century . The narrator , Jim Hawkins, is the young son of the owners of the Admiral Benbow Inn. An old drunken seaman named Billy Bones becomes a long-term lodger at the inn, only paying for about the first week of his stay. Jim quickly realizes that Bones is in hiding, and that he particularly dreads meeting an unidentified seafaring man with one leg. Some months later, Bones is visited by a mysterious sailor named Black Dog. Their meeting turns violent, Black Dog flees, and Bones suffers a stroke. While Jim cares for him, Bones confesses that he was once the mate of the late notorious pirate, Captain Flint , and that his old crewmates want Bones's sea chest.

Some time later, another of Bones's crewmates, Pew, appears at the inn and forces Jim to lead him to Bones. Pew gives Bones a paper. After Pew leaves, Bones opens the paper to discover the Black Spot, a pirates' summons , with the warning that he has until ten o'clock, and he drops dead of apoplexy (in this context, a stroke ) on the spot. Jim and his mother open Bones' sea chest to collect the amount due for Bones's room and board, but before they can count out the money that they are due, they hear pirates approaching the inn and are forced to flee and hide, Jim taking with him a mysterious oilskin packet from the chest. The pirates, led by Pew, find the sea chest and the money, but are frustrated that the chest does not contain "Flint's fist." Revenue agents approach and the pirates escape to their vessel, except for Blind Pew, who is accidentally run down and killed by the agents' coach and horses. Jim Hawkins comes to the house of local landlord Squire Trelawney and his mother's friend and patron Dr. Livesey.

Together, they examine the oilskin packet, which contains a logbook detailing the treasure looted during Captain Flint's career, and a detailed map of an island, with the location of Flint's treasure caches marked on it. Squire Trelawney immediately plans to outfit a sailing vessel to hunt the treasure down, with the help of Dr. Livesey and Jim. Livesey warns Trelawney to be silent about their objective. Going to Bristol , Trelawney buys a schooner named Hispaniola, hires a Captain Smollett to command her, and retains Long John Silver, owner of "The Spy-glass" tavern and a former sea cook, to run the galley. Silver helps Trelawney to hire the rest of his crew. When Jim comes to Bristol and visits Silver at the Spy Glass tavern, his suspicions are immediately aroused: Silver is missing a leg, like the man Bones warned about, and Black Dog is sitting in the tavern. Black Dog runs away at the sight of Jim, and Silver denies all knowledge of the fugitive so convincingly that he wins Jim's trust.

Despite Captain Smollett's misgivings about the mission and Silver's hand-picked crew, the Hispaniola sets sail for the Caribbean Sea . As they near their destination, Jim crawls into the ship's apple barrel to get some apples. While inside, he overhears Silver talking secretly with some of the other crewmen. Silver admits that he was Captain Flint's quartermaster and that several of the other crew were also once Flint's men, and he is recruiting more men from the crew to his own side. After Flint's treasure is recovered, Silver intends to murder the Hispaniola's officers, and keep the loot for himself and his men. When the pirates have gone back to their berths, Jim warns Smollett, Trelawney, and Livesey of the impending mutiny . When they reach Treasure Island, the bulk of Silver's men go ashore immediately. Although Jim is not yet aware of this, Silver's men have given him the Black Spot and demanded to seize the treasure immediately, discarding Silver's own more careful plan to postpone any open mutiny or violence until after the treasure is safely aboard. Jim lands with Silver's men, but runs away from them almost as soon as he is ashore.

Hiding in the woods, Jim sees Silver murder Tom, a crewman loyal to Smollett. Running for his life, he encounters Ben Gunn, another ex-crewman of Flint's who has been marooned three years on the island, but who treats Jim kindly in return for a chance of getting back to civilization. In the meanwhile, Trelawney, Livesey, and their men surprise and overpower the few pirates left aboard the Hispaniola. They row to shore and move into an abandoned, fortified stockade on the island, where they are soon joined by Jim Hawkins, having left Ben Gunn behind. Silver approaches under a flag of truce and tries to negotiate Smollett's surrender; Smollett rebuffs him utterly, and Silver flies into a rage, promising to attack the stockade. "Them that die'll be the lucky ones," he threatens as he storms off. The pirates assault the stockade, but are repulsed in a furious battle. During the night, Jim sneaks out of the stockade, takes Ben Gunn's coracle and approaches the Hispaniola under cover of darkness. He cuts the ship's anchor cable, setting her adrift and out of reach of the pirates on shore.

After daybreak, he manages to approach the schooner again and board her. Of the two pirates left aboard, only one is still alive: the coxswain, Israel Hands , who has murdered his comrade in a drunken brawl, and been badly wounded in the process himself. Hands agrees to help Jim helm the ship to a safe beach in exchange for medical treatment and brandy, but once the ship is approaching the beach, Hands tries to murder Jim. Jim escapes him by climbing the rigging , and when Hands tries to stab him with a dirk , Jim shoots Hands dead. Having beached the Hispaniola securely, Jim returns to the stockade under cover of night and sneaks back inside. Because of the darkness, he does not realize until too late that the stockade is now occupied by the pirates, and he is easily captured. Silver, whose always-shaky command has become more tenuous than ever, seizes on Jim as a hostage, refusing his men's demands to kill him or torture him for information. Silver's rivals in the pirate crew, led by George Merry, again give Silver the Black Spot and move to depose him as captain.

Silver answers his opponents eloquently, rebuking them for defacing a page from the Bible to create the Black Spot and reveals that he has obtained the map to the treasure from Dr. Livesey, thus restoring the crew's confidence in him. The following day, the pirates search for the treasure. They are shadowed by Ben Gunn, who makes ghostly sounds to dissuade them from continuing, but Silver forges ahead and locates the place where Flint's treasure was buried. The pirates discover that the cache has been rifled and all of the treasure is gone. The enraged pirates turn on Silver and Jim, but Ben Gunn, Dr. Livesey and his men attack the pirates by surprise, killing two and dispersing the rest. Silver surrenders to Dr. Livesey, promising to return to his duty. They go to Ben Gunn's cave home, where Gunn has had the treasure hidden for some months. The treasure is divided amongst Trelawney and his loyal men, including Jim and Ben Gunn, and they return to England, leaving the surviving pirates marooned on the island. Silver escapes with the help of the fearful Ben Gunn and a small part of the treasure.

Remembering Silver, Jim reflects that "I dare say he met his old Negress [wife], and perhaps still lives in comfort with her and Captain Flint [his parrot]. It is to be hoped so, I suppose, for his chances of comfort in another world are very small." Captain Flint backstory Treasure Island contains numerous references to fictional past events, gradually revealed throughout the story and yielding a backstory that sheds light upon the events of the main plot. The bulk of this backstory concerns the pirate Captain J. Flint , "the bloodthirstiest buccaneer that ever lived", who never appears, being dead before the main story opens. Flint was captain of the Walrus, with a long career, operating chiefly in the West Indies and the coasts of the southern American colonies. His crew included the following characters who also appear in the main story: Flint's first mate, William (Billy) Bones; his quartermaster John Silver; his gunner Israel Hands; and among his other sailors: George Merry, Tom Morgan, Pew, "Black Dog" and Allardyce (who becomes Flint's "pointer" toward the treasure).

Many other former members of Flint's crew were on the cruise of the Hispaniola, though it is not always possible to identify which were Flint's men and which later agreed to join the mutiny—-such as the boatswain Job Anderson and a mutineer "John", killed at the rifled treasure cache. Flint and his crew were successful, ruthless, feared ("the roughest crew afloat"), and rich, if they could keep their hands on the money they stole. The bulk of the treasure Flint made by his piracy—-£700,000's worth of gold, silver bars and a cache of armaments—-was, however, buried on a remote Caribbean island. Flint brought the treasure ashore from the Walrus with six of his sailors, also building a stockade on the island for defence. When they had buried it, Flint returned to the Walrus alone-—having murdered all of the other six. A map to the location of the treasure he kept to himself until his dying moments. The whereabouts of Flint and his crew are obscure immediately thereafter, but they ended up in the town of Savannah , Province of Georgia .

Flint was then ill, and his sickness was not helped by his immoderate consumption of rum. On his sickbed, he was remembered for singing the chantey "Fifteen Men" and ceaselessly calling for more rum, with his face turning blue. His last living words were "Darby M'Graw! Darby M'Graw!", and then, following some profanity, "Fetch aft the rum, Darby!". Just before he died, he passed on the treasure map to the mate of the Walrus, Billy Bones (or so Bones always maintained). After Flint's death, the crew split up, most of them returning to England. They disposed of their shares of the unburied treasure diversely. John Silver held on to £2,000, putting it away safe in banks—and became a waterfront tavern keeper in Bristol, England. Pew spent £1,200 in a single year and for the next two years afterwards begged and starved. Ben Gunn returned to the treasure island to try to find the treasure without the map, and as efforts to find it immediately failed, his crew mates marooned him on the island and left.

Bones, knowing himself to be a marked man for his possession of the map (as soon as the other members of Flint's crew should desire to recover the treasure), looked for refuge in a remote part of England. His travels took him to the rural West Country seaside village of Black Hill Cove and the inn of the 'Admiral Benbow'. Main characters Jim Hawkins : the young man who finds the treasure map; he is the protagonist and chief narrator. His parents are the owners of "The Admiral Benbow Inn." Billy Bones : ex-mate of Captain Flint's ship and possessor of the map of Treasure Island. Dies of a stroke brought on by a combination of alcoholism and fear when "tipped" the Black Spot. Squire John Trelawney : a skilled marksman, he is naïve and hires the crew almost entirely on Long John Silver's advice. He has some sea-going experience and sometimes stands watch in calm weather. Dr. Livesey : a doctor, magistrate, former soldier (having served under the Duke of Cumberland) and friend of Trelawney who goes on the journey and for a short while narrates the story. Captain Alexander Smollett : the stubborn captain of the Hispaniola.

Long John Silver : formerly Flint's quartermaster, later leader of the Hispaniola's mutineers. Engaged as the ship's cook, and formerly the quartermaster on Flint's ship. Seemingly respectable in the beginning, he is landlord of "The Spy-glass" public house. Throughout the novel it is made clear that Silver is a remarkably charming man, whom even his enemies can't quite dislike. It is also clear that he is intelligent, ruthless, manipulative, and without a conscience. Israel Hands: ship's coxswain and Flint's ex-gunner; tries to kill Jim Hawkins and ends up in Davy Jones' Locker . The character may have been named for the real-life pirate Israel Hands . Ben Gunn: a half-insane and marooned ex-pirate, who becomes a lodge keeper after losing his share of the treasure; speaks in a "rusty voice" and craves toasted cheese. He has already found and removed the treasure before the events of the story. Pew : a blind ex-pirate, now beggar and killer, who dies when he is trampled by horses.

With Pew and Long John Silver, Stevenson sought to avoid predictability by making the two most dangerous characters in Treasure Island a blind man and an amputee. Stevenson also introduced a dangerous blind man in Kidnapped . Captain Flint : a feared pirate captain who dies in Savannah ; also the name of Long John's parrot . Other characters Mr. and Mrs. Hawkins, the parents of Jim Hawkins Black Dog, one of the companions of Pew who visit the Spyglass Inn Tom Redruth: The gamekeeper of Squire Trelawney, accompanies him to the island, ends up being shot and killed by the mutineers before the attack on the stockade Richard Joyce: One of the manservants of Squire Trelawney, accompanies him to the island, is later shot through the head and killed by a mutineer at the attack on the stockade John Hunter: the other manservant of Squire Trelawney, accompanies him to the island, is later knocked unconscious at the attack on the stockade. He then dies of his injuries while unconscious Abraham Gray: A sailor on the Hispaniola.

He is incited to mutiny but later defects to the other side when asked to do so by Captain Smollett. Kills Job Anderson at the attack on the stockade, helps shoot the mutineers at the rifled treasure cache. Later escapes the island along with Jim Hawkins, Dr. Livesey, Squire Trelawney, Captain Smollett, Long John Silver and Ben Gunn Tom Morgan: an ex-pirate from Flint's old crew; ends up being marooned on the Island Job Anderson: ship's boatswain and one of the leaders of the mutiny who is killed while trying to storm the blockhouse; possibly one of Flint's old pirate hands John: a mutineer who is injured while trying to storm the boathouse, later shown with a bandaged head, ends up being killed at the rifled treasure cache; possibly one of Flint's old pirate hands O'Brien: a mutineer who survives the attack on the boathouse and escapes, but is later killed by Israel Hands in a drunken fight on the Hispaniola; possibly one of Flint's old pirate hands. Dick: a mutineer who has a Bible. The pirates later use one of its pages to make a Black Spot.

Dick later ends up being marooned on the island after the deaths of George Merry and John. Mr. Arrow: The first mate of the Hispaniola. He drinks alcohol even though there was a rule about no alcohol on board and is useless as an officer. He disappears over the side before they get to the island and his position is filled by Job Anderson. Tom: A sailor who does not defect to mutiny. He hears the dying scream of Alan, and decides to stay honest. He starts to walk away from Long John Silver and the mutineer throws his crutch, breaking Tom's back. Silver then kills Tom by stabbing him twice. Alan: A sailor who does not defect to mutiny. He is killed by the mutineers for his loyalty and his dying scream is heard by several of the others. Additionally, there are minor characters whose names are not revealed.

Some of those are the four pirates who were killed at the attack on the stockade along with Job Anderson, the pirate who was killed by the honest men minus Jim Hawkins before the attack on the stockade, the pirate who was shot by Squire Trelawney (who was aiming at Israel Hands) and later died of his injuries, and the pirate who was marooned on the island along with Tom Morgan and Dick. Themes and conflicts One of the principal conflicts in Treasure Island is between middle class virtue versus proletarian indiscipline. Jim Hawkins, Dr. Livesey, and Captain Smollett, among the principal heroes, stand for virtues such as loyalty, truthfulness, thrift, discipline, religious faith, and temperance (especially with alcohol). The pirates suffer from drunkenness, impiety, and mutual betrayal, and tend to seize immediate gratification on the premise that life is short and uncertain. Long John Silver occupies a middle ground in this conflict: he shares the middle class heroes' virtues of temperance, thrift, and deferred gratification, but is willing to lie, betray, and murder to achieve his ends.

Truthfulness and loyalty The novel can be seen as a bildungsroman , dealing, as it does, with the development and coming-of-age of its narrator, Jim Hawkins. Jim's moral development culminates when he promises Silver not to attempt an escape, and then meets with Dr. Livesey at the edge of the stockade. Jim, fearing that he may divulge the Hispaniola's location under torture, tells Livesey where the ship is so that the doctor can move it away before the pirates can find it. Moved by the prospect of a youngster facing torture, Livesey tells Jim to escape with him. Jim refuses, saying "I passed my word," adhering to the middle class heroes' ethic of truthfulness even at the risk of an excruciating death.

Livesey counters by offering to make Jim's moral standing dependent on his own: "I'll take it on my shoulders, holus bolus, blame and shame, my boy." Jim refuses this dependency, choosing to act as an independent adult like Livesey and his comrades: "'No,' I replied, 'you know right well you wouldn't do the thing yourself--neither you, nor squire nor captain; and no more will I.'" Several of the other heroes are remarkable for standing by their word, notably Dr. Livesey who, loyal to the Hippocratic Oath , keeps his word to render assistance to the sick, even those he despises such as Billy Bones and the pirates who have captured the stockade. It is mainly lack of loyalty and truthfulness that distinguish Long John Silver from the heroes, who otherwise share many values with him. Silver is not only a chronic liar, but an extremely skilled and convincing one. He pretends so convincingly not to know Black Dog that Jim Hawkins admits that "I would have gone bail for the innocence of Long John Silver." His tales to his fellow mutineers about his early career under Captains England and Flint are probably at least partly fanciful (see historical time frame below).

When Jim Hawkins falls into his hands, Silver readily promises to abandon his crew and return to Captain Smollett's orders in exchange for Jim's intervention to spare Silver's life. Then, when he believes Flint's treasure is in his reach, Silver plans (at least according to Jim's perception) to go back on his word, kill Jim, and seize the Hispaniola for himself. Finally, when he finds the treasure gone, Silver again changes sides and betrays his crew. As his last ruse, Silver escapes his captivity with a bag of guineas and disappears. Temperance versus drunkenness One More Step, Mr. Hands by N. C. Wyeth, 1911, for Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson A strong contrast is constantly drawn between the drunkenness of the pirates (except Silver) and the temperance of the heroes, especially Dr. Livesey. Alcohol undoes many of the villains in Treasure Island. Captain Flint dies from excessive rum drinking. Dr. Livesey warns Billy Bones against drinking further after his first stroke; Bones ignores this warning, suffers a relapse, and dies.

Drunkenness leads to the fatal fight between Israel Hands and O'Brien, enabling Jim Hawkins to recapture the Hispaniola. It is strongly implied that the drunken state of the pirates on the island leads to a lack of vigilance, enabling Ben Gunn to kill some of them in their sleep. It is Silver himself who most strongly warns Israel Hands against the consequences of overindulgence in alcohol: "But you're never happy till you're drunk. Split my sides, I've a sick heart to sail with the likes of you! ... You'll have your mouthful of rum tomorrow, and go hang." Religion versus irreligion The conflict of piety versus irreligion is mainly developed between Jim Hawkins and Israel Hands on the Hispaniola. Hands is feigning mortal illness, and Jim says that he should pray like a Christian man if he is nearing death. When Hands asks him why, Jim answers heatedly, "For God's mercy, Mr. Hands, that's why." Hands answers at uncharacteristic length, "I never seen good come o' goodness yet.

Him as strikes first is my fancy; dead men don't bite; them's my views—Amen, so be it." Also, Jim's faith contrasts with Hands' scepticism regarding an afterlife. When discussing O'Brien, the pirate and mutineer that Hands has murdered, Jim says, "You can kill the body, Mr. Hands, but not the spirit; you must know that already ... O'Brien there is in another world, and maybe watching us." Hands replies, "Well, that's unfort'nate--appears as if killing parties was a waste of time. Howsomever, sperrits don't reckon for much, by what I've seen. I'll chance it with the sperrits, Jim." Silver's place in the religious conflict is ambiguous. He utters dire imprecations against his shipmates for defacing a Bible, and warns that Dick, the man who yielded his Bible to be defaced, will suffer bad luck for the rest of his life. However, he says this in the context of his men trying to depose him as captain, and his religious threats may be merely tactical, intended to intimidate his opponents. Aside from the Bible incident, Silver shows no obvious inclination toward religion.

Many of Silver's men, in turn, take the stigma of defacing the Bible quite seriously, indicating that they have religious feelings and fears of their own. But for both Silver and his men, the idea of inflicting physical damage to the Bible is more frightening than violating the Bible's precepts, suggesting a more ritual than spiritual outlook on religion. Thrift versus profligacy The conflict of thrift versus profligacy runs through much of the book. Most of the pirates are unable to hold on to their money; Silver relates that Pew "spends twelve hundred pound in a year, like a lord in Parliament. Where is he now? Well, he's dead now and under hatches, but for two year before that, shiver my timbers! the man was starving. He begged, and he stole, and he cut throats, and starved at that, by the powers!" Ben Gunn exceeds even Pew's lack of foresight; given a thousand pounds of Flint's treasure, he spends and gambles it all away in nineteen days. According to Silver, these two are wholly typical of pirates: "[W]hen a cruise is done, why, it's hundreds of pounds instead of hundreds of farthings in their pockets.

Now the most goes for rum and a good fling, and to sea again in their shirts." Silver himself, again, adheres to the middle class value of thrift. Billy Bones manages to hang on to much of his money through the simple expedient of not paying his innkeeper. The heroes are largely thrifty: Jim Hawkins' mother will risk facing pirates rather than let Bones's debt to her go uncollected, Captain Smollett uses his share of the treasure to retire from the sea, and the loyal crewman Gray saves enough money to become a master's mate and raise a family. Allusions and references Map of Unst Island There are a number of islands which could be the real-life inspiration for Treasure Island. One story goes that a mariner uncle had told the young Stevenson tales of his travels to Norman Island in the British Virgin Islands , thus this could mean Norman Island was an indirect inspiration for the book. [9] Nearby Norman Island is a Dead Man's Chest Island , which Stevenson found in a book by Charles Kingsley .

Stevenson said "Treasure Island came out of Kingsley's At Last: A Christmas in the West Indies (1871); where I got the 'Dead Man's Chest' - that was the seed". [10] [11] If it was "the seed" for Skeleton Island, the phrase "dead man's chest", the novel in general, or all, remains unclear. Other contenders are the small islands in Queen Street Gardens in Edinburgh , as "Robert Louis Stevenson lived in Heriot Row and it is thought that the wee pond he could see from his bedroom window in Queen Street Gardens provided the inspiration for Treasure Island". [12] There are a number of Inns which claim to have been the inspiration for places in the book. In Bristol , the Llandoger Trow is claimed to be the inspiration for the Admiral Benbow whilst the Hole in the Wall is claimed to be the Spyglass Tavern. The Pirate's House in Savannah, Georgia is where Captain Flint is supposed to have spent his last days, [13] and his ghost is claimed to haunt the property.

[14] In 1883 Stevenson had also published The Silverado Squatters , a travel narrative of his honeymoon in 1880 in Napa Valley , California . His experiences at Silverado were kept in a journal called "Silverado Sketches", and many of his notes of the scenery around him in Napa Valley provided much of the descriptive detail for Treasure Island. In May 1888 Stevenson spent about a month in Brielle, New Jersey along the Manasquan River . On the river is a small wooded island, then commonly known as "Osborn Island". One day Stevenson visited the island and was so impressed he whimsically re-christened it "Treasure Island" and carved his initials into a bulkhead. This took place five years after he had completed the novel. To this day, many still refer to the island as such. It is now officially named Nienstedt Island, honoring the family who donated it to the borough. [15] [16] The map of the island bears a vague resemblance to that of the island of Unst in Shetland [citation needed]. The Unst island website claims that Stevenson wrote Treasure Island following a visit to Unst.

Actual history Allusions to historical pirates and piracies Five real-life pirates mentioned are William Kidd (active 1696-1699), Blackbeard (1716–1718), Edward England (1717–1720), Howell Davis (1718–1719), and Bartholomew Roberts (1718–1722). The name "Israel Hands" was taken from that of a real pirate in Blackbeard 's crew, whom Blackbeard maimed (by shooting him in the knee) simply to assure that his crew remained in terror of him. Allegedly Hands was taken ashore to be treated for his injury and was not at Blackbeard's last fight (the incident is depicted in Tim Powers ' novel On Stranger Tides ); this alone saved him from the gallows; supposedly he later became a beggar in England. Silver refers to a ship's surgeon from Roberts' crew who amputated his leg and was later hanged at Cape Corso Castle , a British fortification on the Gold Coast of Africa.

The records of the trial of Roberts' men list one Peter Scudamore as the chief surgeon of Roberts' ship Royal Fortune. Scudamore was found guilty of willingly serving with Roberts' pirates and various related criminal acts, as well as attempting to lead a rebellion to escape once he had been apprehended. He was, as Silver relates, hanged. Stevenson refers to the Viceroy of the Indies, a ship sailing from Goa , India (then a Portuguese colony), which was taken by Edward England off Malabar while John Silver was serving aboard England's ship the Cassandra. No such exploit of England's is known, nor any ship by the name of the Viceroy of the Indies. However, in April 1721 the captain of the Cassandra, John Taylor (originally England's second in command who had marooned him for being insufficiently ruthless), together with his pirate partner [17] did capture the vessel Nostra Senhora do Cabo near Réunion island in the Indian Ocean. The Portuguese galleon was returning from Goa to Lisbon with the Conde da Ericeira, the recently retired Viceroy of Portuguese India, aboard.

The viceroy had much of his treasure with him, making this capture one of the richest pirate hauls ever. This is likely the event that Stevenson referred to, though his (or Silver's) memory of the event seems to be slightly confused. The Cassandra is last heard of in 1723 at Portobelo, Panama , a place that also briefly figures in Treasure Island as "Portobello". The preceding two references are inconsistent, as the Cassandra (and presumably Silver) was in the Indian Ocean during the entire time that Scudamore was surgeon on board the Royal Fortune, in the Gulf of Guinea. One actual pirate who buried treasure on an island was William Kidd on Gardiners Island . The booty was recovered by authorities soon afterwards. [18] Other allusions 1689: A pirate whistles " Lillibullero " (1689). 1702: The Admiral Benbow inn where Jim and his mother live is named after the real life Admiral John Benbow (1653–1702). 1733: Captain Flint , who may or may not have been fictional, died in the town of Savannah, Georgia, founded in 1733.

1745: Doctor Livesey was at the Battle of Fontenoy (1745). 1747: Squire Trelawney and Long John Silver both mention "Admiral Hawke", i.e. Edward Hawke, 1st Baron Hawke (1705–1781), promoted to Rear Admiral in 1747. 1749: The novel refers to the Bow Street Runners (1749). Possible influences Squire Trelawney may have been named for Edward Trelawney, Governor of Jamaica 1738-1752. Dr. Livesey may have been named for Joseph Livesey (1794–1884), a famous 19th-century temperance advocate, founder of the tee-total "Preston Pledge". In the novel, Dr.

Livesey warns the drunkard Billy Bones that "the name of rum for you is death." [19] [20] Historical time frame Stevenson deliberately leaves the exact date of the novel obscure, Hawkins writing that he takes up his pen "in the year of grace 17--." However, some of the action can be connected with dates, although it is unclear if Stevenson had an exact chronology in mind. The first date is 1745, as established both by Dr. Livesey's service at Fontenoy and a date appearing in Billy Bones's log. Admiral Hawke is a household name, implying a date later than 1747, when Hawke gained fame at the Battle of Cape Finisterre and was promoted to Admiral, but prior to Hawke's death in 1781. Another hint, though obscure, as to the date is provided by Squire Trelawney's letter from Bristol in Chapter VII, where he indicates his wish to acquire a sufficient number of sailors to deal with "natives, buccaneers, or the odious French".

This expression suggests that Great Britain was, at that time, at war with France; e.g., during the War of the Austrian Succession from 1740 to 1748, or the Seven Years' War from 1756 to 1763. Stevenson's map of Treasure Island includes the annotations Treasure Island Aug 1 1750 J.F. and Given by above J.F. to Mr W. Bones Maste of ye Walrus Savannah this twenty July 1754 W B. The first of these two dates is likely the date at which Flint left his treasure at the island; the second, just prior to Flint's death. As Flint is reliably reported to have died at least three years before the events of the novel (the length of time that Ben Gunn was marooned), it cannot take place earlier than 1757 and still be consistent with the map. The events of Treasure Island would therefore seem to have taken place no earlier than 1757.

As the schooner Hispaniola docks peacefully at a port in Spanish America — where it even finds a British man-of-war — at the end of the story, it must also take place before 1762, when Spain joined the Seven Years' War against Great Britain. The evidence above therefore implies a date between 1757 and 1762. This range of dates, however, contradicts Long John Silver's account of himself, as given to Dick while Jim Hawkins listened in the apple barrel. Silver claims to be fifty years old, which would place his birth no earlier than 1707; and both Silver and Israel Hands, who had been in Flint's crew together, claim to have had experience on the sea (presumably as pirates) for thirty years prior to their arrival at Treasure Island, i.e. since about 1727. However, Silver claims to have sailed "First with England , then with Flint", which pushes the beginning of his career to some time before 1720, the date of Captain Edward England's death, implying a longer career at sea than thirty years.

Silver also says that the surgeon who amputated his leg was hanged with Roberts's crew at Corso Castle : this would mean he has been disabled at least since 1722, at an age no greater than 15—-an age incompatible with his holding as significant an office as quartermaster under Captain Flint, or with being a crewman under England who was senior enough, and served long enough, to have "laid by nine hundred [pounds] safe". As noted under Actual history , some of the people and events Silver claims to have witnessed were on opposite sides of Africa at the same time, and Silver's assignments of names and places are not entirely accurate. Silver's stories, then, may be no more reliable than his claim to have lost his leg while serving under Admiral Hawke, and containing inconsistencies which his audience were too ignorant to notice. Silver must either be closer to sixty than fifty, or his stories of the pirates England and Roberts are fabrications, retellings of stories he had heard from other pirates, into which he has inserted himself-—which would account for their inconsistencies. Sequels and prequels In the novel Peter Pan (1911) by J. M.

Barrie , it is said that Captain Hook is the only man the old Sea-Cook ever feared. Captain Flint and the Walrus are also referenced. Author A. D. Howden Smith wrote a prequel, Porto Bello Gold (1924), that tells the origin of the buried treasure, recasts many of Stevenson's pirates in their younger years, and gives the hidden treasure some Jacobite antecedents not mentioned in the original. Author H. A. Calahan wrote a sequel Back to Treasure Island (1935). Calahan argued in his introduction that Robert Lewis Stevenson wanted to write a continuation of the story. Author R. F. Delderfield wrote The Adventures of Ben Gunn (1956) which follows Ben Gunn from parson's son to pirate and is narrated by Jim Hawkins in Gunn's words. Author Leonard Wibberley wrote a sequel, Flint's Island (1972). Author Denis Judd wrote a sequel, Return to Treasure Island (1978). Author Bjorn Larsson wrote a sequel, Long John Silver (1999).

Author Frank Delaney wrote a sequel, The Curse of Treasure Island (2001) using the pseudonym "Francis Bryan". Author Roger L. Johnson wrote Dead Man's Chest:The Sequel to Treasure Island (2001). Author John Drake wrote a prequel, Flint & Silver (2008) [21] Another volume is expected (Pieces of Eight). References in other works German metal band Running Wild , who are known for their lyrics on piracy, wrote an 11 minute epic on the story on their 1992 album Pile of Skulls . Spike Milligan wrote a parody, Treasure Island According to Spike Milligan (2000). Avi, author of The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, wrote the foreword to the 2000 edition of Treasure Island from Alladin Classics. In LucasArts' The Curse of Monkey Island , the main character Guybrush Threepwood sings a commercial jingle about "Silver's Long Johns" (they breathe!) in an attempt to be the fourth member of a barbershop quartet.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, Hector Barbossa names his pet monkey after Jack Sparrow , a captain he mutinied against. This may have been inspired by Silver naming his parrot Captain Flint. According to the screenwriters' commentary on the DVD of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, the captain killed by an East India Trading Company official early in the movie is Jim Hawkins' lost father. This is, however, contrary to the original book: Jim Hawkins' father died at the Admiral Benbow Inn, in the company of Jim and his mother, in chapter three. Dead Man's Chest also makes use of a "black spot". In Dutch author Reggie Naus' children's novel De schat van Inktvis Eiland ("The treasure of Squid Island") (2008), the main character's last name is Stevenson. Though the plot is unrelated to Stevenson's novel, the pirates in this book brush shoulders with characters from Treasure Island. Another character in the novel, the quartermaster Walter Gunn, is Ben Gunn's older brother. The song "Fifteen men on a dead man's chest" features frequently in the book.

The writer is a big fan of Stevenson's book and included these references in tribute. In the Swallows and Amazons series by Arthur Ransome the Amazons' (Blacketts') Uncle Jim has the nickname of Captain Flint and a parrot. Alan Coren wrote an article in Punch , entitled "A Life on the Rolling Mane", parodying Treasure Island to adapt it to the National Hairdressers' Association's campaign to stamp out "pirate barbers". Notable lines are Bald Pew's "Remember the days of the old clippers?" and Hawkins' memories of the "boom of the scurf". The seafood restaurant chain " Long John Silver's " was named after the main villain. In the Zoobilee Zoo episode "Is There a Doctor in the House?", three of the Zoobles play three of the characters in Treasure Island, with Bravo Fox playing the main villain. Adaptations Film and TV There have been over 50 movie and TV versions made. [22] Some of the notable ones include: Film 1990 - Treasure Island - Starring Christian Bale , Charlton Heston , Christopher Lee and Pete Postlethwaite .

A made for TV film written, produced and directed by Heston's son, Fraser C. Heston. 1993 - The Legends of Treasure Island - An animated series loosely based on the novel, with the characters as animals. 1995 - In the Wishbone (TV series) episode "Salty Dog", Wishbone explores the story in a children's adapted version. There are also a number of Return to Treasure Island sequels produced, including a 1986 Disney mini-series, a 1992 animation version, and a 1996 and 1998 TV version. Theatre and radio There have been over 24 major stage and radio adaptations made. [23] The number of minor adaptations remains countless. Orson Welles broadcast a radio adaptation via Mercury Theatre on July 1938; half in England, half on the Island; omits "My Sea Adventure"; music by Bernard Herrmann ; Available online . In 1947, a production was mounted at the St. James's Theatre in London, starring Harry Welchman as Long John Silver and John Clark as Jim Hawkins.

For a time, in London there was an annual production at the Mermaid Theatre , originally under the direction of Bernard Miles , who played Long John Silver , a part he also played in a television version. Comedian Spike Milligan would often play Ben Gunn in these productions. The Henegar Center for the Arts in downtown historic Melbourne, Florida ran an adaptation in August 2009. The story is also a popular plot and setting for a traditional pantomime where Mrs. Hawkins, Jim's mother is the dame Music The Ben Gunn Society album released in 2003 presents the story centered around the character of Ben Gunn, based primarily on Chapter XV "Man of the Island" and other relevant parts of the book. Treasure Island song from Running Wild 's album named Pile of Skulls (1992). The pirate power metal thematic of the band is well placed in this song, telling the novel's story. Software A computer game based loosely on the novel was issued by Commodore in the mid 1980s for the Plus/4 home computer, written by Greg Duddle.

A graphical adventure game, the player takes the part of Jim Hawkins travelling around the island despatching pirates with cutlasses before getting the treasure and being chased back to the ship by Long John Silver. A catchy tune is included. Footnotes "Lay Morals" Ch. 4, in Lay Morals and Other Essays (1911) Give us grace and strength to forbear and to persevere. Give us courage and gaiety and the quiet mind, spare to us our friends, soften to us our enemies. Prayer, inscribed on the bronze memorial to Stevenson in St. Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh, Scotland Our business in this world is not to succeed, but to continue to fail, in good spirits. Complete Works, vol. 26, Reflections and Remarks on Human Life, section 4 Aes Triplex (1878) Every heart that has beat strong and cheerfully has left a hopeful impulse behind it in the world, and bettered the tradition of mankind. The Oxford Book of Essays ed.

by John Gross (New York: Oxford, 1998) [Title is Latin for "triple brass," used by Horace] Already and old man, he [Samuel Johnson] ventured on his Highland tour; and his heart, bound with triple brass, did not recoil before twenty-seven individual cups of tea. 314 We do not go to cowards for tender dealing; there is nothing so cruel as panic; the man who has least fear for his own carcase, has most time to consider others. 314 Across the Plains (1892) The true realism, always and everywhere, is that of the poets: to find out where joy resides, and give it a voice far beyond singing. For to miss the joy is to miss all. If your morals make you dreary, depend upon it they are wrong. I do not say "give them up," for they may be all you have; but conceal them like a vice, lest they should spoil the lives of better and simpler people. The observer (poor soul, with his documents!) is all abroad. For to look at the man is but to court deception.

We shall see the trunk from which he draws his nourishment; but he himself is above and abroad in the green dome of foliage, hummed through by winds and nested in by nightingales. And the true realism were that of the poets, to climb up after him like a squirrel, and catch some glimpse of the heaven for which he lives. And, the true realism, always and everywhere, is that of the poets: to find out where joy resides, and give it a voice far beyond singing. For to miss the joy is to miss all. In the joy of the actors lies the sense of any action. Ch. VII, The Lantern-Bearers We should wipe two words from our vocabulary: gratitude and charity. In real life, help is given out of friendship, or it is not valued; it is received from the hand of friendship, or it is resented. Ch.

IX, Beggars To be honest, to be kind — to earn a little and to spend a little less, to make upon the whole a family happier for his presence, to renounce when that shall be necessary and not be embittered, to keep a few friends, but these without capitulation — above all, on the same grim condition, to keep friends with himself — here is a task for all that a man has of fortitude and delicacy. He has an ambitious soul who would ask more; he has a hopeful spirit who should look in such an enterprise to be successful. There is indeed one element in human destiny that not blindness itself can controvert: whatever else we are intended to do, we are not intended to succeed; failure is the fate allotted. Ch. XII, A Christmas Sermon Gentleness and cheerfulness, these come before all morality; they are the perfect duties. Ch. XII, A Christmas Sermon If your morals make you dreary, depend upon it they are wrong. I do not say "give them up," for they may be all you have; but conceal them like a vice, lest they should spoil the lives of better and simpler people. Ch.

XII, A Christmas Sermon Here lies one who meant well, tried a little, failed much: — surely that may be his epitaph of which he need not be ashamed. Ch. XII, A Christmas Sermon External links Treasure Island Summary Treasure Island Summary NEXT How It All Goes Down At the start of Treasure Island, Jim Hawkins is living with his mother and father at their inn, the Admiral Benbow. Life is pretty ordinary – Jim's father is sick, which sucks, but other than that, there isn't much going on for him. Until, that is, a sunburned sailor singing, "Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!" comes through the front door of the family establishment. This sailor calls himself a captain and demands a room. He proceeds to settle down at the Admiral Benbow Inn, drink a ton of whiskey, and tell terrifying stories about life on the high seas. One day, after an old shipmate named Black Dog manages to track down the captain, he gets so worked up that he has a stroke. The captain starts hallucinating and raving about his old life as a pirate.

Apparently, the captain isn't a captain at all: his name is Billy Bones, and he was second in command to someone named Captain Flint. Jim doesn't have much time to care about the captain's crazy talk, though: his father dies that same night. The day after Jim's father's funeral, a blind man appears at the Inn looking for the captain. This man is Pew, and he orders that the captain meet his old shipmates at 10 o'clock that night. The blind man leaves, the captain jumps up, and then he falls over dead from a heart attack. After some shenanigans with Pew and a bunch of pirates who try to steal Billy Bones's sea chest, Jim comes away with a packet of papers from Billy Bones. He decides to bring the papers to Doctor Livesey, the local judge. Jim finds Doctor Livesey at the squire's house (a squire is a local lord). The squire is Mr. Trelawney. Doctor Livesey and Squire Trelawney both agree that Captain Flint is a famous pirate and that Jim's packet of papers must contain a treasure map to Flint's fortune.

Squire Trelawney offers to put up the money for a sailing voyage to the island shown on the map, since who doesn't want to go hunting for treasure? So it's decided: Squire Trelawney is going to go to a coastal town in England right away to hire a ship and a crew, and then Doctor Livesey will come down to accompany him on their quest. Jim gets to go, too, as cabin boy. While Squire Trelawney is looking for a crew for their voyage, he finds a delightful man, an old cook with one leg named Long John Silver who willingly volunteers to help him choose his crew. Squire Trelawney is really impressed by Long John Silver's manner and intelligence, so he basically hands over the hiring duties to him. Squire Trelawney also finds a nice ship, the Hispaniola, and a captain, Captain Smollett. Squire Trelawney asks one of his servants, Mr. Blandly, to stay behind and send another ship after them in August if Mr. Blandly sees no signs of them before then. And they're off! Jim is having the time of his life, even though he has to work hard.

But things take a bad turn one night when Jim climbs down into an apple barrel on deck to get the last piece of fruit and finds himself falling asleep in the dark space. He wakes up to overhear Long John Silver talking to a young sailor, Dick Johnson, trying to persuade Dick to join Long John Silver and his men. Long John Silver knows exactly where the Hispaniola is heading, because he used to be part of Captain Flint's crew as well! Jim realizes that the crew is just biding its time until they reach the island, when the sailors plan to rise up against Captain Smollett, kill all the non-pirates, and steal Captain Flint's treasure. As soon as the coast is clear, Jim climbs out of the barrel and runs and tells Captain Smollett, Doctor Livesey, and Squire Trelawney what he has overheard. When the Hispaniola arrives at the island ( check out this map to get a sense of what it looks like), the mood of the crew is clearly growing ugly. But they don't actively mutiny (remember, the crew doesn't have the map, and they also don't have Captain Smollett's sailing skills).

Captain Smollett offers them all a round of drinks and sends two-thirds of the crew onto the island to stretch their legs. When the crew is ashore, he and Doctor Livesey ambush the remaining six sailors (including Israel Hands, one of the leaders of the sailors) and lock them below decks. Then they go ashore to find a better place to set up headquarters, a place with fresh water (which the ship doesn't have) that can still be defended. They find an abandoned fort and set up there after a brief fight with a group of surprised crewmen. Jim, meanwhile, has slipped ashore with the pirates and gone off exploring on his own. He is totally astonished to find a man on the island, Ben Gunn, who sailed with Captain Flint. Ben was marooned on the island three years earlier, so he's a little nutty, but he agrees to help Squire Trelawney and Doctor Livesey in exchange for a thousand British pounds, freedom, and some cheese. As Jim and Ben talk, they hear the sounds of a fight. Jim hurries through the forest to find that his friends have taken control of an old fort on the island.

So he slips into the fort to tell them what he has discovered about Ben Gunn. After a battle with the pirates, Jim sees Doctor Livesey head into the forest to consult with Ben Gunn. Jim hatches his own plan: he's going to find the tiny boat Ben Gunn mentioned to see if it might be helpful to them. Jim knows that he wouldn't be allowed to do this if he asked, but he slips away from the fort anyway and goes off to explore. Jim finds the little boat and suddenly gets another great idea: he's going to set the Hispaniola adrift from its anchor so that the pirates can't control the ship. Jim rows out to the ship, cuts the line attaching it to its anchor, and watches it get caught in the current. There are only two men aboard the ship, Israel Hands and a man named O'Brien. The two are in the middle of a furious fight when the Hispaniola starts to move, so they don't react quickly enough to stop Jim. Jim eventually manages to get on board the Hispaniola again. He sees that Israel Hands has murdered O'Brien, but he has also been badly injured.

Israel Hands isn't strong enough to steer the ship by himself, so he and Jim strike a deal to bring the ship around to the secluded North Inlet of the island to beach it safely. Once they arrive at the North Inlet, Israel Hands tries to murder Jim, but Jim gets in a lucky shot, and Israel Hands falls dead into the sea below. Jim climbs down from the ship, wades to shore, and climbs back up to the fort. It's now the middle of the night and too dark to see what is going on, so Jim is completely surprised to find the pirates, and not his friends, waiting at the fort. Long John Silver prevents the other pirates from killing Jim. Long John Silver is playing a complicated game: first of all, Long John Silver is confused. He can't figure out why Doctor Livesey and everyone just abandoned the fort, nor can he work out why Doctor Livesey gave Long John Silver the treasure map. But Long John Silver is dealing with dissatisfaction from his own pirate crew, who are angry that they haven't found the treasure and now the ship is gone. Long John Silver is sure the pirates are going to rise up against him if he shows his confusion or any sign of weakness.

So he keeps Jim close to him – he wants Jim to stand as witness that he saved Jim's life if he ever comes to trial. Doctor Livesey comes by the fort as part of their truce and treats the injured and sick pirates. Jim manages to get word to him that Long John Silver seems to be flipping sides and that Jim has beached the Hispaniola on the north end of the island. Doctor Livesey warns Long John Silver that there will be trouble if he goes to look for the treasure, and then Doctor Livesey heads off into the forest. Long John Silver uses the treasure map to lead Jim and the remaining pirates (Dick Johnson, Tom Morgan, George Merry, and two more guys) to the place marked on the map. They find that the treasure has already been dug up! That's why Doctor Livesey was willing to give them the map – it isn't worth anything anymore. With this disappointment, the pirates turn on Long John Silver. They're about to charge, when suddenly three shots ring out from the forest. It's Doctor Livesey, Abraham Gray, and Ben Gunn.

Knowing that the pirates were going to look for the treasure with Jim in tow, the three men decided to follow them through the forest to rescue Jim (and Long John Silver, since he helped save Jim's life). Three pirates survive the ambush (Dick Johnson, Tom Morgan, and a third) and run off into the forest. And that's pretty much it. All that is left is wrapping up. It was Ben Gunn who dug up the treasure and moved it to his cave, two months before the Hispaniola even arrived at the island. They all carry the treasure back to the beached Hispaniola, leave some supplies for the pirates they are planning to abandon on the island (check out "What's Up With the Ending?" for more on this morally gray choice), and sail away. The only men left on the Hispaniola are Doctor Livesey, Squire Trelawney, Jim Hawkins, Abraham Gray, Ben Gunn, and Long John Silver. Long John Silver slips away from the ship as soon as they dock at a nearby port to restock their crew and supplies. Ben Gunn gets his thousand pounds as a reward for his help and then spends it all and winds up a beggar again.

Abraham Gray, the loyal sailor, saves his money and starts a good life. And everyone else gets plenty of treasure. The end!

Question: What is the name of the inn owned by the parents of 'Jim Hawkins' featured in Robert Louis Stevenson's 'Treasure Island'?
Answer: ADMIRAL BENBOW