Treasure Island, published in 1883, popularized the now familiar characters
of pirates and brought them to rum-swilling life. When an old sailor named
Billy Bones dies in the inn belonging to young Jim Hawkins’s parents, he
leaves a greasy old map on which an “X” marks the spot where treasure is
buried. Jim joins the crew of a ship in pursuit of Bones’s treasure, and on
the seas meets up with Long John Silver, a peg-legged pirate who has
infiltrated their ranks. Jim must survive mutinies and counter-mutinies,
face hand-to-hand combat with drunken sailors, and outwit double-crossing
thieves before the treasure can be his.