60 Fun Facts About Treasure Island

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

Stevenson summed up its subject as 'buccaneers and buried gold'.

Under what working title did Stevenson originally write Treasure Island?

The subtitle was 'A Story for Boys'.

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

It ran in seventeen weekly instalments from October 1881 to January 1882.

Under what pseudonym was the serialised Treasure Island credited?

Stevenson was still a relatively unknown author when it appeared.

In what year was Treasure Island first published as a book, by Cassell & Co.?

It came out on 14 November of that year.

Where was Stevenson holidaying in 1881 when he drew the treasure map that started the story for his stepson?

His father joined in and suggested details that made it into the book.

What was the name of Stevenson's stepson, for whom the story was invented?

He later co-wrote several books with Stevenson and described the model for Long John Silver.

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

It named Dead Chest Island, a barren rock in the British Virgin Islands.

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

Jim's parents run it, and a sunburnt old seaman turns up asking for rum.

Who narrates most of Treasure Island?

The doctor takes over the narration for a few chapters in the middle of the book.

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

He warns Jim to keep watch for a one-legged man, then dies of a stroke.

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

Silver later says he ran through his share of Flint's treasure at £1,200 a year before turning to begging and murder.

The rogue Black Dog, who confronts Bones at the inn, is missing what?

The book hints that Bones inflicted the injury in an earlier fight.

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

The spot is a circle of paper blackened on one side, with the pirates' verdict written on the other.

The expedition sails from which English port aboard the Hispaniola?

Squire Trelawney charters the schooner and, fatally, cannot keep the purpose of the voyage secret.

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

He had been quartermaster under Flint, and his crutch and parrot fixed the pirate image for good.

What is the name of Long John Silver's parrot?

The bird is named, in honour or mockery, after Silver's dead former captain.

What phrase is Silver's parrot famous for squawking?

A piece of eight was a Spanish silver dollar, worth eight reales.

Which leg has Long John Silver lost?

Stevenson describes him hopping about on his crutch 'like a bird'.

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

Stevenson wrote him a letter confessing it after the book came out.

Hiding in what does Jim overhear Silver plotting the mutiny?

He immediately warns Captain Smollett, the squire and the doctor.

Who is the captain of the Hispaniola?

He is a stickler for rules who later says he and Jim should never go to sea together again.

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

In the 1950 Disney film he falls overboard drunk on food that Silver has specially prepared.

Ben Gunn, the castaway Jim meets on the island, had been marooned there for how long?

Alone that long, he developed one very specific and famous food craving.

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

Dr Livesey obliges him with a piece of Parmesan he keeps in his snuffbox.

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

Gunn had found and shifted it long before, leaving the pirates a rifled, empty hole.

Ben Gunn's share of the treasure is £1,000, which he manages to spend or lose in how many days?

Squire Trelawney's party divides the rest back in England.

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

The name belonged to a real pirate in Blackbeard's crew, whom Blackbeard shot in the knee to keep his men terrified.

What was the name of Flint's pirate ship?

Flint is dead before the novel begins; the Pirates' House in Savannah, Georgia, claims he spent his last days there.

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

The pirates become convinced Flint's ghost is haunting the island.

How does Long John Silver end the novel?

Three other surviving pirates are left marooned, and Jim vows never to return to the 'accursed' island.

Squire Trelawney's gamekeeper, shot dead by the mutineers while moving to the stockade, is named what?

He is one of the squire's three servants brought along on the voyage.

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

Stevenson also admired Ballantyne's 'The Coral Island' and name-checks him in the book's epigraph.

Which real place, said to have its own Spyglass Hill, was supposedly described to Stevenson by a sailor uncle?

Fidra and Unst are also claimed as models, and the map is said to vaguely resemble Unst.

Roughly how many film and television adaptations of Treasure Island have there been?

They range from a 1918 silent to Disney's space-set 'Treasure Planet'.

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

Jackie Cooper played Jim and Lionel Barrymore played the dying old seaman Bones.

Disney's 1950 Treasure Island, starring Robert Newton, was a landmark for the studio for what reason?

It was also the first screen version of the story shot in colour.

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

He is the unofficial patron saint of International Talk Like a Pirate Day.

Bobby Driscoll, the American child star of Disney's 1950 film, ended up in a British court because of what?

He was two years too young for a Ministry of Labour permit; Disney finished his scenes and sent him home.

Which screen legend played Long John Silver in the 1972 film version?

He had already played Silver in a 1938 radio adaptation for the Mercury Theatre.

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

Miss Piggy played a gender-flipped castaway, Benjamina Gunn.

In 'Muppet Treasure Island', which Muppet plays Captain Smollett?

Fozzie is the half-witted Squire Trelawney and Sam Eagle is first mate Arrow.

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

Bones's dying warning to Jim is to 'beware the cyborg'.

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

It bombed, earning about $110 million on a $140 million budget, but was still nominated for the Best Animated Feature Oscar.

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

Toby Stephens played Flint and Luke Arnold a young John Silver.

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

Countless other sequels and prequels exist, including R. F. Delderfield's 'The Adventures of Ben Gunn'.

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

Oliver Reed and Christopher Lee were also in the cast, and Heston's son Fraser directed.

Which 2024 Disney+ series is a loose adaptation of Treasure Island set in the Star Wars universe?

It follows a group of children lost in space with a Silver-like rogue played by Jude Law.

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

'Stevenson's cave' at Bridge of Allan is said to have inspired the character's dwelling.

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

His grandfather Robert built the Bell Rock lighthouse; Louis studied engineering before switching to law and then writing.

Where did Stevenson die in 1894, aged 44?

He had settled there in 1890 and was known to islanders as Tusitala, 'teller of tales'.

How does the blind pirate Pew die during the raid on the Admiral Benbow?

The mounted revenue men under Mr Dance rout the pirates, and Jim escapes with the oilskin packet containing Flint's map.

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

He later escapes the island with the honest party and spends his share of the treasure on his education.

The mutineer in the red nightcap killed by Israel Hands in a drunken fight is finally named as whom?

Jim only learns the Irishman's name when Hands tells him aboard the drifting Hispaniola.

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

Five real pirates are mentioned in all, including Howell Davis and Edward England, whose ship the Cassandra Silver claims to have served on.

The expedition's doctor mentions having served at which 1745 battle?

Such clues let readers date the novel's action to the mid-18th century, decades before it was written.

Stevenson's epigraph name-checks Kingston, Cooper and which author of The Coral Island?

Stevenson admired The Coral Island for its 'better qualities' and it partly inspired his own desert-island tale.

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

Fittingly, the doctor warns the rum-soaked Billy Bones that 'the name of rum for you is death'.

A 1980s Soviet Ukrainian animated version became a 2022 meme for its portrayal of which character?

Directed by Davyd Cherkaskyi at Kyivnaukfilm, it was released in the US in 1992 as Return to Treasure Island.

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

It aired on 1 and 2 January 2012, one of more than 50 screen versions of the novel.