Table of Contents

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

About the Author

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.

Reviews

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*