Robert Louis Stevenson

John D. Seelye

The quintessential adventure story that first established pirates in the popular imagination, Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island is edited with an introduction by John Seelye in Penguin Classics. When a mysterious sailor dies in sinister circumstances at the Admiral Benbow inn, young Jim Hawkins stumbles across a treasure map among the dead man's possessions. But Jim soon becomes only too aware that he is not the only one who knows of the map's existence, and his bravery and cunning are tested to the full when, with his friends Squire Trelawney and Dr Livesey, he sets sail in the Hispaniola to track down the treasure. With its swift-moving plot and memorably drawn characters - Blind Pew and Black Dog, the castaway Ben Gunn and the charming but dangerous Long John Silver - Stevenson's tale of pirates, treachery and heroism was an immediate success when it was first published in 1883 and has retained its place as one of the greatest of all adventure stories. In his introduction John Seelye examines Stevenson's life and influences and the novel's place within adventure fiction. This edition also includes Stevenson's essay on the composition of Treasure Island. Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) was born in Edinburgh, the son of a prosperous civil engineer. Although he began his career as an essayist and travel writer, the success of Treasure Island (1883) and Kidnapped (1886) established his reputation as a writer of tales of action and adventure. Stevenson's Calvinist upbringing lent him a preoccupation with predestination and a fascination with the presence of evil, themes he explored in The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), and The Master of Ballantrae (1893). If you enjoyed Treasure Island, you might like Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, also available in Penguin Classics.

Treasure Island

Winky thought he'd seen everything in Wyoming Territory: rustlers, hangings, shoot-outs, cattle standing frozen stiff in the snow. Then into town one lazy day rode a long-haired kid and a colossal African mute. They were met in the saloon by Fiddler Jones, whose hair and temper flared like a wasps' nest. Fiddler's yellow eyes fell instantly in love with the kid's pouch of gold dust. That pouch was worth killing for. Fiddler was no stranger to trouble, but the trouble he found in the kid and the mute took everyone by surprise. It just kept coming, like nothing Winky had ever seen before.

The Kid

Includes selections from Bret Harte, Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce, Owen Wister, Frederic Remington, Stephen Crane, Jack London, Frank Norris, Stewart Edward White, O. Henry, and Mary Austin.

Tales of the Mining Camp, Cavalry Troop, & Cattle Ranch

Stories of the Old West

"Seelye's version seems even funnier than the original, and also more moving, since Seelye's Huck Finn is even less sentimental about life and Tom Sawyer than Twain's Huck Finn. He is also more perceptive about black people than the original." -- Hughes Rudd, CBS News "Seelye has stitched together a whale of a book. Without reference to Twain's own version, it is almost impossible to see the seams where 1970 joins 1884." -- Geoffrey Wolff, Newsweek

John D. Seelye

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