Audiobook · read by volunteers
Treasure Island
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894)
Read by Mark Bradford, Gord Mackenzie, Kara Shallenberg (1969-2023), Mitchell Dwyer, Ivan, Neal Foley, Hugh McGuire, Chris Vee, mjd-s, Kristen McQuillin · 26 chapters · 7 h 30
About the book
A battered sea chest, a mysterious old pirate and a map of an island: with these, young Jim Hawkins is swept out of the quiet inn where he lives and onto a ship bound for buried treasure. The crew seems friendly enough, and none more so than the one-legged cook, Long John Silver, who has a parrot on his shoulder and a charm that nobody can resist. But not everyone on board is what he seems. Robert Louis Stevenson's classic is the great pirate adventure, a tale of daring, suspense and moral ambiguity that has shaped our picture of pirates ever since. Ten LibriVox readers share twenty-six short chapters, just over seven and a half hours of high seas. Fifteen men on a dead man's chest, and more besides.
Introduction
Robert Louis Stevenson, who lived from 1850 to 1894, was a Scottish writer whose books include Kidnapped, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and a famous collection of children's verse. Treasure Island was published in book form in 1883, having first appeared as a serial in a magazine for boys. He is said to have begun it while amusing his stepson on a rainy holiday with a drawn map of an island, and the map came to be the heart of the story.
The novel is traditionally considered a coming-of-age story, narrated by Jim, a boy who grows up very fast. It is full of atmosphere, character and action, and also offers a wry commentary on the ambiguity of morality, as seen most clearly in Long John Silver, a villain who is charming, intelligent and not entirely unlovable. This is unusual for children's literature then and now, and it gives the book a depth that adults appreciate. Many of the things that we associate with pirates, such as treasure maps, the Black Spot and parrots, owe a great deal to Stevenson's book.
The narrative is swift and vivid, the chapters are short, and each ends in a way that makes the listener want the next. This makes it an ideal book for listening.
The recording has twenty-six chapters, grouped in pairs in the early parts, and lasts about seven and a half hours. Ten LibriVox volunteers share the reading. It is an excellent choice for a family journey or for an adult who wants to rediscover why this book has never gone out of fashion.
Public domain
Robert Louis Stevenson died in 1894: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text