The English collection
Treasure Island
The novel
A stranger’s sea-chest draws young Jim Hawkins from a coastal inn toward a dangerous voyage. Stevenson’s adventure combines the exhilaration of discovery with a sharp eye for the people we choose to trust.
A way into the book
From the introduction
A stranger arrives at a quiet coastal inn with a sea-chest and a talent for frightening everyone around him. For Jim Hawkins, the innkeeper’s son, the sea soon becomes more than something visible from the doorstep. Treasure Island begins with the discomfort of sharing a house with a dangerous adult, then opens outward into a voyage. Its pleasures are concrete: a voice heard through a wall, the shape of a coastline, the distance between a hiding place and safety. You need no advance knowledge of sailing or pirates. Jim must learn whom to trust, and the reader learns beside him.
An excerpt from the original Read Classics introduction. The Android preview contains the complete introduction and Chapter I.
Inside the illustrated edition
The art of the story · Treasure Island
Where the horizon begins
Salt air, a cliff path and a watchful figure. Seven luminous paintings accompany Stevenson’s adventure.
upon the cliffs with a brass telescope
The art of the story · Treasure Island
A world on a sheet of paper
Candlelight gathers around an unfolded chart. The imagined journey begins before the ship departs.
there fell out the map of an island
The art of the story · Treasure Island
The pull of the open water
A harbour slips into the morning light. Colour and moving water catch the excitement of departure.
soon the sails began to draw
The art of the story · Treasure Island
An unfamiliar brightness
Still water reflects a wooded shore. The island’s beauty carries a note of uncertainty.
a kind of poisonous brightness
The art of the story · Treasure Island
A fragile shelter
Rough timber and a narrow stream among the trees. Sunlight lends warmth to a precarious refuge.
a thick bed of moss and some ferns
The art of the story · Treasure Island
A small boat in the dark
A coracle drifts beneath a looming hull. Broken silver light gives the night its scale.
her spars and hull began to take shape
The art of the story · Treasure Island
Room for the imagination
Sea, rock and empty distance. The final panorama leaves space for your own sense of adventure.
the very largeness of the view increased the sense of solitude
In development
The Android preview
Introduction + Chapter I · No account needed.
The Android app lets you try the typography and read the preview offline. It is not yet available for public download.
For now, you can read the introduction excerpt above. This website does not yet offer the reading sample or an interactive reader.
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