7 h 50 minAudiobook15 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 7 h 50 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
A stranger brings a sea chest to a lonely inn—and draws a boy into a hunt for buried gold.
Jim Hawkins lives at the Admiral Benbow, an inn on the English coast kept by his parents. When the scarred old sailor Billy Bones arrives, fear follows him through the door. A map points toward a fortune on a distant island. Jim leaves home as a cabin boy, bound for treasure among men whose loyalties he must learn to judge.
Aboard the Hispaniola, Long John Silver seems a kindly cook: clever, charming, and popular with the crew. Captain Smollett distrusts the voyage, while Squire Trelawney talks too freely about its purpose. As a plot takes shape at sea, Robert Louis Stevenson turns the search for gold into a test of courage, loyalty, and Jim’s growing understanding of the adults around him.
What you’ll discover
- A map into danger Follow Jim from a lonely coastal inn toward an island marked with the promise of gold.
- A cook with secrets Meet Long John Silver, whose kindness to Jim sits uneasily beside his hunger for treasure.
- Trouble aboard the Hispaniola Feel suspicion grow as a promising voyage carries the threat of mutiny.
- Courage under fire Enter a wooden fort where loyalty faces the force of cutlasses and pistols.
- More than buried gold Watch a sheltered boy learn courage and discover how greed tests the people around him.
Who will love it
Readers who love pirates, buried gold, sea voyages and clever rogues will enjoy this adventure. It suits those drawn to a boy narrator growing braver.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A stranger brings danger to Jim
- The captain cannot escape his past
- Jim carries the secret away
- Silver wins trust before sailing
- Listening reveals the hidden mutiny
- The island exposes Silver's cruelty
- Charm is not goodness
- Jim learns responsibility through risky choices
- Small choices can change everything
Who’s who
- Jim HawkinsThe innkeeper's son and narrator, a brave and curious boy who makes risky choices to protect his friends.
- Long John SilverThe one-legged ship's cook, charming and clever, who wants Flint's treasure and plays every side to get it.
- Dr. LiveseyA calm doctor and magistrate who faces danger with a steady voice and looks after Jim like a guardian.
- Squire TrelawneyThe wealthy, hot-tempered backer of the voyage who cannot keep a secret but has a generous heart.
- Captain SmollettA stern, honest ship's captain who distrusts the crew and insists on discipline to keep everyone alive.
- Billy BonesThe scarred old buccaneer who brings the map to the inn and lives in fear of his former shipmates.
- Ben GunnA marooned sailor, half wild after three years alone, who longs for cheese and a way home.
- Black DogA pale pirate missing two fingers who comes to the inn to find his old shipmate Bill.
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- Large print hardcover
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Treasure Island in 25 languages, side by side, paragraph by paragraph, once the book texts are online: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
Treasure Island
by Robert Louis Stevenson · 1881
A boy at a lonely inn guards a dead pirate's secret while a smiling one-legged cook plans his own game.
Medium level2–5 hours to read2 languages
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In short
What would you do if a stranger with a saber scar rented a room at your family's inn, then paid you to watch for a sailor with one leg? That is where Treasure Island begins for Jim Hawkins, a boy whose father keeps the Admiral Benbow on a lonely stretch of the English coast.
Treasure Island at a glance
- Reading time
- About 4 h 30 min3 h 35 min fast, 5 h 20 min slow
- Length
- 64,100 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
- First published
- 1881by Robert Louis Stevenson
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A frightened captain shelters at the Admiral Benbow
A stranger trudges up to the Admiral Benbow inn, his sea chest following on a handcart. He is tall and sunburned, with a tarry pigtail and a saber scar across one cheek. He tells the innkeeper to call him Captain, tosses down a few gold pieces, and settles in.
The captain spends his days on the cliffs with a brass telescope, watching the sea. Each evening he drinks rum and bellows a song about fifteen men on a dead man's chest. He pays Jim a silver fourpenny coin each month to watch for a seafaring man with one leg. The bully lets his bill grow, and Jim's father is too scared to ask for payment.
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Which edition is right for me
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 15 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- First published
- 1881
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 5 h 5 min
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
Stevenson, Robert Louis. Treasure Island. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/treasure-island.
Stevenson, R. L. (2026). Treasure island. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/treasure-island (Original work published 1881)
Stevenson, Robert Louis. Treasure Island. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/treasure-island.
@book{stevenson2026treasure,
author = {Stevenson, Robert Louis},
title = {Treasure Island},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/treasure-island},
note = {First published 1881}
}
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What is Treasure Island about?
It tells of Jim Hawkins, a boy who finds a pirate's map at his family's inn and sails with friends to an island to find buried gold, while a crew led by a charming cook plots a mutiny.
Who is Long John Silver?
He is the one-legged ship's cook on the Hispaniola, friendly and clever, who was once quartermaster to the pirate Flint. He wins Jim's trust and the crew's loyalty, but has his own plans for the treasure.
What does the black spot mean?
It is a pirate summons, a small piece of paper blackened on one side. When a pirate receives it, it tells him he is condemned or deposed, and it carries a real sense of doom in the story.
The author
Robert Louis Stevenson
1850–1894 · Scottish novelist and poet
Robert Louis Stevenson was a Scottish novelist and poet, born in Edinburgh in 1850. He wrote Treasure Island (1883), A Child’s Garden of Verses (1885), and Kidnapped and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886). He settled in Samoa in 1890 and died there in 1894.
More by Robert Louis Stevenson
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