© Ingrid Haunold
My rating: 5 (of 5) “stars”
I bought a copy of this book a few years ago at my local bookstore, Stöger-Leporello, in Vienna’s 19th district, but only got around to reading it last year. It’s wonderful!
The story was first published in several installments from 1881 to 1882 in a British children’s magazine under the title “The Sea Cook: A Story for Boys” by Stevenson under the pseudonym “Captain George North.” The book’s first edition was published by Cassell & Company, Limited, in 1883.
I bought a paperback edition of the “Collins Classics” series, published in 2013 by HarperCollinsPublishers. I can absolutely recommend this edition. I liked the book’s typography and cover design. The book contains a summary of the History of Collins, a short Life & Times chapter about Robert Louis Stevenson, and a fairly comprehensive Classic Literature: Words and Phrases chapter at the back of the book, adapted from the Collins English Dictionary.
Young readers will find this chapter especially useful, but even I was glad that I could look up the meaning of words like Accoucheur, bevers, or bandbox. The word’s meanings are not just explained, but sentences from the book, in which these words were used, are also listed in this chapter.
“Treasure Island” tells the story of a young boy, Jim Hawkins, who joins a ship’s crew (pirates!) to sail to the Caribbean to find buried treasure. The story takes place in the 1700s, although Stevenson does not state the exact year during which the story takes place. A mature Jim Hawkins looks back on his life, and tells this adventure of his youth. Here’s an excerpt from the online version, provided by Project Gutenberg:
“Squire Trelawney, Dr. Livesey, and the rest of these gentlemen having
asked me to write down the whole particulars about Treasure Island, from
the beginning to the end, keeping nothing back but the bearings of the
island, and that only because there is still treasure not yet lifted, I
take up my pen in the year of grace 17—, and go back to the time when
my father kept the Admiral Benbow inn and the brown old seaman with the
sabre cut first took up his lodging under our roof.”
Jim Hawkins is a wonderful character: likeable, ingenious, and brave; he fights pirates, for cryin’ out loud! And he wins!
I loved reading this book, even though it was written for children. If you have children, buy a copy for them; if you don’t have children, buy one anyway – you won’t regret it.