59 Fun Facts About Treasure Island

Although published in the 1880s, Treasure Island is set in which period?

The 1700s: Jim dates his tale only 'the year of grace 17—', and he vows never to go back for the silver still buried on that 'accursed island'.

Stevenson admitted he couldn't handle a brig, so what kind of ship did he make the Hispaniola?

A schooner: when Jim retakes her from the mutineers, a wounded pirate coaches him to beach her in the island's northern inlet.

Treasure Island was first serialised in 1881–82 in which children's magazine?

Young Folks: the serial flopped with its young readers, and only as a book did Treasure Island become Stevenson's first real success.

Under what pseudonym was the serialised Treasure Island credited?

The serial was credited to 'Captain George North'; Stevenson, then little known, put his own name on the later book edition.

Stevenson admitted borrowing Flint's skeleton pointer from which Poe story?

The Gold-Bug: a servant drops a beetle through a skull's eye to set the line Legrand follows, but he uses the wrong eye, so the first dig finds nothing.

Where was Stevenson holidaying in 1881 when a painted island map started Treasure Island?

Braemar, Scotland: rain kept the family indoors, where Stevenson read his chapters aloud as he wrote them and his father chipped in details.

What was the name of the stepson Stevenson invented Treasure Island to amuse?

Lloyd Osbourne, the boy the tale was written to amuse, grew up to co-write The Wrong Box and The Ebb-Tide with his stepfather.

Stevenson found the seed phrase 'Dead Man's Chest' in a travel book by which author?

Charles Kingsley: his travel book At Last lists a Virgin Island called the Dead Man's Chest, and Stevenson took that name for his pirate song.

What is the name of the inn on the English coast where Treasure Island opens?

The Admiral Benbow: after the old captain dies there, a pirate gang raids it for his sea chest, but Jim has already fled with the packet holding Flint's map.

Who narrates most of Treasure Island?

Jim Hawkins tells the tale, except for three chapters where the doctor takes over, because Jim is off ashore when the loyal party abandons the ship.

The old seaman lodging at the inn as 'The Captain' is really which former first mate of Flint's?

Billy Bones, once Flint's mate, pays Jim to watch for 'a seafaring man with one leg' and dies of apoplexy after the black spot is served.

Which blind beggar delivers the dreaded 'black spot' to the old seaman at the inn?

Pew: the paper gives the old seaman 'till ten tonight', but the shock of being handed the black spot kills him on the spot.

Black Dog, who confronts the old captain at the inn, is missing what?

Jim notices Black Dog is missing two fingers of his left hand; in the fight that follows, the captain's cutlass gashes his shoulder before he flees.

When handed the black spot, Silver points out the paper was torn from what, bringing bad luck?

Silver sneers that the spot was cut out of a Bible — Dick's — and warns that a crew which mutilates scripture has thrown away its luck.

The expedition sails from which English port aboard the Hispaniola?

Bristol: Squire Trelawney fits out the Hispaniola there but can't keep quiet about the treasure, so even the hands know their errand before they sail.

What is Long John Silver's job aboard the Hispaniola?

Ship's cook: behind the friendly galley act, Silver leads a gang of Flint's old pirates hidden among the Hispaniola's crew.

When Jim and his mother open the dead captain's sea chest, what does she insist on taking?

What he owed her: she keeps counting out his unpaid score coin by coin, even as the blind man's stick comes tapping back up the road.

What phrase is Silver's parrot famous for squawking?

Pieces of eight: Silver's squawking parrot helped fix the pirate-with-a-parrot image in popular culture.

Squire Trelawney hires Silver believing he lost his leg in the Navy; what had he really been under Flint?

Quartermaster: yet aboard, Silver calls his parrot Cap'n Flint, after the famous buccaneer.

Long John Silver was partly modelled on which one-legged, red-bearded editor friend of Stevenson?

Stevenson confessed in a letter to William Ernest Henley that 'the sight of your maimed strength and masterfulness' had begotten Long John Silver.

Hiding in what does Jim overhear Silver plotting the mutiny?

Jim climbs into an apple barrel for a snack and hears Silver recruiting hands for a mutiny; he then warns the captain, the squire and the doctor.

Who is the captain of the Hispaniola?

Alexander Smollett distrusts the crew the squire hires from the very start, and he is proved right when most of them turn out to be mutineers.

What happens to Mr Arrow, the Hispaniola's alcoholic first mate?

He is lost overboard: Mr Arrow vanishes one dark night, and Jim later works out that Silver had been secretly slipping the drunken mate his rum.

Why did his shipmates maroon Ben Gunn on Treasure Island?

He found no treasure: Gunn himself had urged his shipmates to land and hunt for Flint's hoard, and after twelve fruitless days they went back aboard without him.

What food does the marooned Ben Gunn crave above all else?

Cheese: Ben Gunn dreams of it 'toasted, mostly', and the doctor wins his loyalty with the Parmesan he keeps hidden in his snuffbox.

Where does the bulk of Flint's treasure turn out to be when the pirates dig?

Already moved to Ben Gunn's cave: Gunn had dug the gold up long before, so the pirates reach an empty pit and turn on Silver and Jim.

After getting his £1,000 share, Ben Gunn was back begging on which day?

20: Ben Gunn blew his thousand pounds in nineteen days, then was given a lodge to keep, the very servant's job he had dreaded on the island.

Which pirate does Jim fight aboard the drifting Hispaniola after cutting her anchor cable?

Israel Hands, the coxswain, goes for Jim with a dagger and is shot with both pistols; Stevenson borrowed the name from Blackbeard's real second-in-command.

What was the name of Flint's pirate ship?

The Walrus: Stevenson said his father, who eagerly joined in the tale's making, particularly asked for that name for Flint's old ship.

How does Ben Gunn scare the superstitious pirates during the treasure hunt?

Shouting Flint's last words from the trees terrifies the pirates, until Silver recognises the voice as Ben Gunn's and they march on to dig.

What finally becomes of Long John Silver?

He slips away at the first port with some money, a sack of stolen coin, and it is Ben Gunn, of all people, who helps him escape.

Squire Trelawney's gamekeeper, mortally wounded as the loyal party moves to the stockade, is named what?

Tom Redruth, the squire's old gamekeeper, dies in the log-house that evening, and the squire's valet Richard Joyce is killed in the attack that follows.

The desert-island adventure genre of Treasure Island is usually traced back to which 1719 novel?

Robinson Crusoe: Stevenson owned up to borrowing from it, writing that 'no doubt the parrot once belonged to Robinson Crusoe'.

Which island with its own Spyglass Hill is often claimed as Treasure Island's model?

Norman Island (BVI) had real buried treasure: silver from a mutinous Spanish galleon's crew was hidden there, until Tortola islanders dug it up for themselves.

Which pirate captain did another novelist call the only man Long John Silver feared?

Captain Hook: Barrie's Peter Pan says he was the only man Barbecue, Silver's nickname, was afraid of, yet Hook himself dreads the crocodile that stalks him.

Who played the first speaking Long John Silver, in the 1934 MGM film?

Wallace Beery had been announced for a pirate role in the 1920 silent Treasure Island, but another actor ended up playing it.

Disney's 1950 Treasure Island was a landmark for the studio for what reason?

Its first completely live-action film cast Robert Newton as Silver, and his growling performance set how screen pirates talk.

Robert Newton's stereotypical pirate accent exaggerated the speech of which English region?

The West Country: Newton grew up in Cornwall, and his growling Silver became the voice Talk Like a Pirate Day asks everyone to put on.

What problem cut short Bobby Driscoll's shoot on Disney's 1950 film in England?

He had no permit to work in the UK and was too young to get one, so a court fined Disney and his family, and the director rushed through his close-ups.

Which screen legend played Long John Silver in the 1972 film of Treasure Island?

Orson Welles had loved the novel for decades and had already played Silver on his Mercury Theatre radio show back in 1938.

Who played Long John Silver in 'Muppet Treasure Island' (1996)?

Tim Curry played Silver, while Miss Piggy took the gender-flipped role of the castaway, Benjamina Gunn, and Kevin Bishop made his film debut as Jim.

In 'Muppet Treasure Island', which Muppet plays the Hispaniola's captain?

Kermit the Frog plays the ship's captain, and on the island he runs into the old flame he once jilted, the pig queen Benjamina Gunn, played by Miss Piggy.

Disney's 2002 animated 'Treasure Planet' reimagined Long John Silver as what?

A cyborg: a crash-landed sailor warns Jim to 'beware the cyborg', and the one he means turns out to be Silver himself.

Who directed 'Treasure Planet', the same duo behind 'The Little Mermaid' and 'Aladdin'?

Ron Clements and John Musker, the team behind The Little Mermaid and Aladdin, directed Treasure Planet, which grossed about $110 million on a $140 million budget.

Which 2014–2017 Starz drama was a prequel to Treasure Island?

Black Sails reveals Captain Flint as a disgraced former Royal Navy officer, with Toby Stephens as Flint and Luke Arnold as a young John Silver.

Which former UK Poet Laureate wrote the 2012 sequel 'Silver: Return to Treasure Island'?

Andrew Motion, Poet Laureate from 1999 to 2009, published Silver: Return to Treasure Island in 2012, sending Jim's son and Silver's daughter back to the island.

The 1990 TNT film of Treasure Island starred Charlton Heston as Silver and which young actor as Jim?

Christian Bale played Jim in a family affair: Heston's son Fraser wrote, produced and directed it, casting his own father as Silver.

Herman Toothrot, a half-crazed marooned hermit inspired by Ben Gunn, appears in which video game series?

Monkey Island: creator Ron Gilbert has said Tim Powers' novel On Stranger Tides inspired it, while the Pirates of the Caribbean ride only set the mood.

Robert Louis Stevenson came from a family famous in which profession?

The Stevensons were the great dynasty of Scottish lighthouse engineering: grandfather Robert built the Bell Rock light and father Thomas many more, though Louis abandoned engineering for law, then writing.

Where did Stevenson die in 1894, aged 44?

Samoa: after he collapsed at Vailima, possibly from a brain haemorrhage, Samoans carried him up Mount Vaea and buried him overlooking the sea.

How does the blind beggar die during the pirates' raid on the inn?

Deserted by his gang, the blind man is trampled by an excise officer's horse as Supervisor Dance's revenue riders thunder into the cove.

Which loyal carpenter's mate kills the boatswain Job Anderson, saving Jim's life at the stockade?

Abraham Gray nearly joined the mutineers until the captain gave him thirty seconds to come over, and he later rises to mate and part-owner of a ship.

What homemade boat of Ben Gunn's does Jim use to reach the Hispaniola by night?

A coracle: Jim reaches the Hispaniola in it just as her two drunken pirate guards are fighting, a brawl that one of them does not survive.

Which real pirate named in the novel buried treasure on Gardiners Island?

William Kidd buried it hoping to bargain with its location, but after his arrest in Boston the authorities soon dug the booty up.

Dr Livesey says he was wounded fighting the French at which 1745 battle?

Fontenoy: Livesey fought under the Duke of Cumberland, whose army was beaten there by Marshal Saxe's French in May 1745.

Treasure Island's opening verse salutes 'Ballantyne the brave', author of which castaway novel?

The Coral Island: its marooned boys meet evil outside themselves, and William Golding answered it with Lord of the Flies, where the evil is within.

The doctor's surname may come from Joseph Livesey, a 19th-century campaigner for what cause?

Temperance: Joseph Livesey founded the teetotal 'Preston Pledge', and fittingly the doctor warns the rum-soaked old captain that 'the name of rum for you is death'.

Besides doctoring, what other office lets Dr Livesey threaten the old captain with hanging?

A magistrate: after the raid on the inn, Jim's rescuer agrees he should take the captain's packet to Livesey, 'a gentleman and a magistrate'.

Which comedian starred as Long John Silver in the two-part 2012 Sky1 adaptation?

Eddie Izzard played Silver, and the series even shows Donald Sutherland as Flint, a pirate who is already dead before the book begins.