Treasure Island

By: Robert Louis Stevenson

Narrated by: Neil Hunt

If you happen to find a map in a dead buccaneer's sea trunk, you can't very well ignore it, not if you are Jim Hawkins and his friends Dr. Livesey, Captain Smollett, and Squire Trelawney! But even with a map, buried treasures are not easy things to come by. At the start of his grand adventure, setting sail on the good ship Hispaniola, the young Hawkins is a hesitant, querulous boy, too easily beguiled by his own fancy.

By journey's end he will have faced murder, mutiny, and mayhem - and in the process, become a man. Narrator Neil Hunt brings to life the characters Robert Louis Stevenson made so memorable: Black Dog, Blind Pew, Billy Bones, George Merry, Israel Hands, and Ben Gunn.

©1988 Recorded Books, LLC (P)1988 Recorded Books, LLC

An outstanding reader

Any additional comments?

Neil Hunt does an outstanding job with the characters' voices in his reading of Treasure Island. Before purchasing this particular unabridged reading, I sampled perhaps a dozen of the options available at Audible. Most of them I was able to rule out because of poor audio quality. I only hesitated about Hunt's reading because the narrative sections in the sample he seemed to read a trifle faster than was necessary, as though in a great haste to tell the story. But having come to the end of the book, I was so delighted with his handling of the dialogue between the characters that I can see I made the right choice in buying this recording. The story is a classic, of course, and while nothing profound, it is a great deal of fun. I highly recommend this audio book.

Timeless Classic

The first pirate story and a good one. Neil Hunt does a great job in the narration.

Pieces of eight

Not a bad story. Some of the words and verbiage clearly denote note the time when it was written. A nice variation from what I usually read.

Wonderful classic

I somehow missed this one back in school in the 70s & 80s. Great listen. I'm glad I found it.

a must-read classic. well preformed

a must-read classic that has been expertly read for you by a talented narrator. enjoy

Incredible narrative talent.

the narrator was absolutely amazing particularly in the part of long john silver. highly recommend.

Makes you feel like a young lad!

Great narration to a classic adventure story. Fun to listen. Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!

Silver

I liked Jim and I didn’t really like merry at all but the story was really interesting and great.

A classic that is still a worthy story

Any additional comments?

I really only grabbed this because my 9th grader was going to read it as part of his Honors English class (it was on the list.) Unfortunately, he found the 19th century Kings English a bit too daunting and didn't know what they were talking about half the time. He ended up reading something else. However, I thought it was fun and stuck with it. I of course have known of the book "forever," and I think I saw a movie base on it, way-back-when; but I never read the book.

So now I have read (or listened to) the book and I am glad I did. They story still holds up and was fun. It was also fun comparing it to Treasure Planet. It actually perked my interest enough that I watched a few different movie versions that I could find.

Pieces of eight!

I have toured the Stevenson House in Monterey, California where it is said Stevenson conceived the idea for “Kidnapped”. Stevenson said he got the basis for the story of “Treasure Island” after drawing a map of an imaginary island for his stepson but when he lived in Monterey the scenery triggered the story. I had read the book, years and years ago when in elementary school. I reread it in 1959 after first touring the Stevenson house. When Audible displayed the book I thought I would reread the classic even though it is a children’s story.

The story takes place in the mid 1700s, on the west coast of England. Our protagonist is Jim Hawkins, the son of an inn keeper. An old sailor “the Captain” Billy Bones is a logger at the inn and pays Jim to keep an eye out for a one legged seafaring man. Billy has a stroke and dies, and then Jim’s father dies. Jim and his mother open Billy’s sea chest and discover money, a journal and a map. The district Squire Trelawney obtains a ship and hires the local physician Dr. Livesy as the ship’s doctor and Jim as cabin boy. He hires a crew including Long John Silver as the cook along with his talking parrot. They sail off to find the pirate Captain Flint’s Treasure Island.

The story was published as seventeen weekly installments in the “Young Folks Magazine” from 1 October 1881 to 28 January 1882. It was later published as a book. Stevenson wrote “The “Amateur Emigrant,” “The Pavilion on the Links,” and “A Vendetta in the West” while living in Monterey. Stevenson said his time in Monterey influenced his writing in many ways, the scenery; the people of many nations living together gave him many ideas for stories. Needless to say the book is well written and Neil Hunt did a good job narrating the book.