Collection: Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Stevenson, 1850 to 1894, was in poor health for most of his life and wrote through it, traveling for the climate and dying in Samoa at forty-four. Treasure Island began with a map he drew to amuse his stepson. The story was written to go with the map.

It is the best adventure novel in English and it is also a serious book about trust. Jim has to work out who to believe, and the man he likes most is the man who will cut his throat if the sums change. Long John Silver remains the finest pirate ever put on a page precisely because he is charming, competent and genuinely fond of the boy, and none of that makes him safe.

Loyalty under test, nerve under pressure, and the straightest look at greed in any book handed to a child. Fathers tend to read it twice.