Robert Louis Stevenson - The Ultimate Collection Series

"Treasure Island", classic adventure novel by Robert Louis Stevenson, serialised in the magazine Young Folks from October 1881 to January 1882 and published in book form in 1883. Although not the first book about pirates, "Treasure Island" is considered by many to be the best. "Treasure Island" was first a map that Stevenson drew for the amusement of his stepson. The map proved so interesting that he created a story to go along with it, reading instalments of the story to his family as he finished them. Stevenson’s father, who happened to be visiting on the day of one of those readings, became so attracted to the story that he made plot suggestions, at least two of which were followed (the contents of Billy Bones’s trunk and Jim Hawkins in the apple barrel). Summary: A pirate walks into the inn owned by the father of Jim Hawkins. The pirate’s name is Bill Bones, and he has a map to a treasure on an island in a chest. He is a gravely old man who dies of a stroke after getting a notice that the pirates he had been running from, had found him. Jim finds the map and shares it with a doctor and squire near his home. They decide to get a ship and crew to find the treasure. But, the sailor they hire is Long John Silver, who they discover is a pirate. He has a two-hundred-year-old parrot that sings shanties and sits on his shoulder. Long John Silver brings with him men who, they discover later, are also pirates. When they arrive at the island, the pirates mutiny. They take over the ship and try to get the treasure for themselves. The pirates and the regular sailors go back and forth on who has the ship. Jim comes across a crazy old man, Ben Gunn, who was marooned three years ago, by Captain Flint when he buried his treasure. After Long John Silver acquired the map from Jim’s friends, he and the pirates go for the treasure. They find that the treasure was moved by Ben Gunn years earlier. Jim’s friends set a trap and kill all the pirates except Long John Silver. The few men left, set sail for home, taking Silver with them. He jumped ship before they landed, taking a couple bags of gold with him. Jim and his friends use the gold they have, but none of them want to go back to the haunted island, even if there is any treasure left in the ground...

"Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", published in 1886 by Robert Louis Stevenson, is about a man who transforms between two personae: Dr. Henry Jekyll and Mr. Edward Hyde. It is a perfect example of the Gothic genre. The phrase 'Jekyll and Hyde' is sometimes used colloquially to refer to someone whose actions cannot be reconciled with each other. In this story, Mr. Utterson, a lawyer and friend of Dr. Jekyll’s, is bothered by a will written by his friend that completely benefits a strange fellow named Mr. Hyde. To protect his friend, Mr. Utterson begins investigating Mr. Hyde, only to discover some truths about his friend that he could never have...

Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella "The Misadventures of John Nicholson" appeared in the 1887 Christmas Yule-Tide. Bearing all the hallmarks of Stevenson’s most gripping works, this story offers a host of colorful characters to rival those found among the pages of "Treasure Island."  Exasperated that his stern and overbearing father refuses to tolerate his penchant for alcohol, John Nicholson decides to leave his life in Edinburgh in search of all the fame and fortune that America has to offer. Initially delighted with his new life, he soon learns to his cost that the excesses his father so decried would ultimately become his downfall—on both sides of the ocean.

First published in 1888, "The Black Arrow" (AKA The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses) is a historical adventure novel and a romance novel by Robert Louis Stevenson. This exciting adventure story is full of intrigue, suspense, hair-breadth escapes, and desperate fights, but It also contains an unusual love story. "The Black Arrow" offers valuable insights into history and rates among the best novels available about the fifteenth-century English civil conflict, the War of the Roses. Originally serialized in a periodical of boys' adventure fiction, "The Black Arrow" is a swashbuckling portrait of a young man's journey to discover the heroism within himself. Young Dick Shelton, caught in the midst of England's War of the Roses, finds his loyalties torn between the guardian who will ultimately betray him and the leader of a secret fellowship, The Black Arrow. As Shelton is drawn deeper into this conspiracy, he must distinguish friend from foe and confront war, shipwreck, revenge, murder, and forbidden love, as England's crown threatens to topple around him.

Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel "The Master of Ballantrae" (in full "The Master of Ballantrae: A Winter’s Tale"), written in 1888 and published in 1889, examines the conflict between two brothers, Scottish noblemen whose family is torn apart by the Jacobite rising of 1745. This masterpiece provides another example of the moral ambiguity Stevenson had explored earlier in "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde". Ballantrae is bold and unscrupulous; his younger brother Henry is plodding, good-natured, and honest. While Ballantrae joins the fight to restore the Stuarts to the English throne during the 1745 rebellion, his brother stays behind as a supporter of King George. Ballantrae is believed dead but returns to find Henry in charge of the estate, married to Ballantrae’s love. The elder brother begins to persecute the younger, in Scotland and then America. Like "Treasure Island" and "Kidnapped", "The Master of Ballantrae" is a gripping, fast-paced adventure story told in the first person, serious and foreboding and Gothic. It starts off in a gloomy old Scottish mansion and takes its protagonists, powerfully and vividly, to the immense forests of New World.