Classic Starts®: Treasure Island

By Robert Louis Stevenson, Lucy Corvino and Arthur Pober

Following Sterlings spectacularly successful launch of its childrens classic novels (240,000 books in print to date),comes a dazzling new series: Classic Starts. The stories are abridged; the quality is complete. Classic Starts treats the worlds beloved tales (and children) with the respect they deserve--all at an incomparable price.

Pirates, buried treasure, and action aplenty--thats whats served up in this fine story, mates, and kids will eat it up. After Jim Hawkins finds the map to a mysterious treasure, he sets sail in search of the fortune. Little does he realize hes boarded a pirate ship, and that surprises and danger await him...including a meeting with the inforgettable Long John Silver.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Union Square Kids
• Release date: Dec 7, 2010
• ISBN: 9781402786907

Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Stevenson was born in Edinburgh in 1850, the only son of an engineer, Thomas Stevenson. Despite a lifetime of poor health, Stevenson was a keen traveller, and his first book An Inland Voyage (1878) recounted a canoe tour of France and Belgium. In 1880, he married an American divorcee, Fanny Osbourne, and there followed Stevenson's most productive period, in which he wrote, amongst other books, Treasure Island (1883), The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and Kidnapped (both 1886). In 1888, Stevenson left Britain in search of a more salubrious climate, settling in Samoa, where he died in 1894.

Book preview

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Treasure Island

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Retold from the Robert Louis Stevenson

original by Chris Tait

Illustrated by Lucy Corvino

9781402786907_int_00i-154_0002_002

STERLING and the distinctive Sterling logo are registered trademarks of

Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Tait, Chris.

   Treasure Island / abridged by Chris Tait; illustrated by Lucy Corvino; retold from the original author, Robert Louis Stevenson.

      p. cm.—(Classic starts)

   Summary: While going through the possessions of a deceased guest who owed them money, the mistress of the inn and her son find a treasure map that leads to a pirate fortune as well as great danger.

   ISBN 1-4027-1318-5

   [1. Buried treasure—Fiction. 2. Pirates—Fiction. 3. Adventure and adventurers— Fiction.] I. Corvino, Lucy, ill. II. Stevenson, Robert Louis.

   Treasure Island. III. Title. IV. Series.

   PZ7.T1289Tr 2004

   [Fic]—dc22

2004014666

10 12 14 16 18 20 19 17 15 13 11

Published by Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.

387 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10016

Copyright © 2005 by Chris Tait

Illustrations copyright © 2005 by Lucy Corvino

Distributed in Canada by Sterling Publishing

c/o Canadian Manda Group, 165 Dufferin Street

Toronto, Ontario, Canada M6K 3H6

Distributed in the United Kingdom by GMC Distribution Services,

Castle Place, 166 High Street, Lewes, East Sussex, England BN7 1XU

Distributed in Australia by Capricorn Link (Australia) Pty. Ltd.

P.O. Box 704, Windsor, NSW 2756, Australia

Classic Starts is a trademark of Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.

Printed in China

All rights reserved

Design by Renato Stanisic

Sterling ISBN 978-1-4027-1318-7

For information about custom editions, special sales, premium and

corporate purchases, please contact Sterling Special Sales

Department at 800-805-5489 or [e-mail].

CONTENTS

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PART I : THE OLD BUCCANE ER

CHAPTER 1

The Old Sea Dog at the Admiral Benbow

CHAPTER 2

Black Dog

CHAPTER 3

The Black Spot

CHAPTER 4

Blind Man’s Bluff: The Sea Chest Is Opened

CHAPTER 5

The Last of the Blind Man

CHAPTER 6

The Captain’s Papers

PART II : THE SEA COOK AND MY

FIRST ONSHORE ADVENTURES

CHAPTER 7

The Crew Is Assembled

CHAPTER 8

At the Sign of the Spyglass

CHAPTER 9

The Captain Has Doubts

CHAPTER 10

What I Heard in the Apple Barrel,

and Afterward

CHAPTER 11

How My Shore Adventure Began

CHAPTER 12

The Man of the Island

PART III : THE STOCKADE

CHAPTER 13

The Story Continued by the Doctor:

How the Ship Was Abandoned

CHAPTER 14

The Doctor Continues: The First Day

of Fighting Ends

CHAPTER 15

Jim Resumes the Story: The Garrison

in the Stockade

CHAPTER 16

The Attack

PART IV: MY SEA ADVENTURE

CHAPTER 17

How My Sea Adventure Began

CHAPTER 18

My Cruise in a Coracle

CHAPTER 19

I Strike the Jolly Roger and Let Israel

Hands Lend a Hand

CHAPTER 20

Pieces of Eight

PART V: CAPTAIN SILVER

CHAPTER 21

In the Enemy’s Camp

CHAPTER 22

The Black Spot Returns

CHAPTER 23

On Parole

CHAPTER 24

The Treasure Hunt—Flint’s Pointer

CHAPTER 25

The Voice Among the Trees

CHAPTER 26

A Fond Farewell—We Make Our Way Home

What Do You Think?

Afterword

Classic Starts™ Library

PART I : THE OLD BUCCANEER

CHAPTER 1

The Old Sea Dog at the

Admiral Benbow

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A great number of people have asked me to write down the whole story of Treasure Island, and that I shall do. But I will leave out the location of the island, because the treasure is still out there. The story begins back when my father was running an inn called the Admiral Benbow. The night was bitter, and we could hear a howling wind outside when the old seaman with a scarred face first made his way through our door.

In he blew, a strange sight with his sea chest being dragged behind him in a wheelbarrow. He was strong and tall, with nut-brown skin and a blackened pigtail hanging over a dirty blue coat. In fact, everything about him looked dirty, including his hands and nails. The whiteness of the scar that spread across his cheek stood out against his grimy skin. He whistled and sang a song I would hear many times:

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"Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest . . .

Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!"

After the man rapped his heavy stick on the floor, my father appeared. Our guest seemed not to notice him at first, so busy was he at looking around our inn.

A handy cove, he said, and convenient too. Been busy lately, have you?

No, my father answered, and that was the truth. Business had been slow.

Well, then, he said, this fine place will do for me. Hey you there, he said to the man who pushed the barrow, I’ll want some help getting my chest upstairs. I’ll stay down here a bit. He went on in a gruff tone. I’m a plain man; bacon and eggs is what I want—and that view up there to watch for ships. You’ll call me Captain.

He noticed my father’s doubting look and threw down some gold coins, which he’d taken out of a small leather pouch. You let me know, he said fiercely, when I’ve worked through that! There’s more where that came from!

Though he looked shabby and his manners were coarse, he seemed used to being obeyed. The man who carried his things told us that he had just come into port that morning and that he had asked for a quiet inn along the coast. That was all we could learn about our mysterious guest.

He was a silent man who spent his days upon the cliffs looking through a shiny brass telescope out across the horizon. At night he would sit by the fire in our parlor. He would often not speak when spoken to and just as suddenly would blow his nose like a foghorn. Our guests kept their distance from him, as did I and my father.

After his evening stroll, he would ask whether any sailors had come along the road. At first we thought he was lonely, but soon we realized that he was hiding from someone.