109 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.

Where did the 'Dead Man's Chest' sea song that the pirates sing in Treasure Island come from?

Stevenson invented it, taking only the name from a barren Caribbean islet he had read about. An American writer later stretched his few lines into a full poem, which was set to music for Broadway in 1901.

What was unusual about the casting of Jim Hawkins in the 1920 silent film of Treasure Island?

A woman played him: Shirley Mason took the part opposite Lon Chaney, who appeared as two different pirates. No print is known to survive, so the picture is counted as a lost film.

In Muppet Treasure Island, which Muppet plays the film's version of the marooned castaway Ben Gunn?

Miss Piggy plays her as the queen of an island tribe of pigs, abandoned there by Flint after an old romance with the ship's captain went sour.

Treasure Island's treacherous coxswain shares his name with a real sailor shot in the knee by which pirate?

Blackbeard hit him while firing at another of his own crew, then remarked that the men would forget who he was unless he killed one now and then.

The man-made Treasure Island, built for a 1939 world's fair and named after the novel, lies in which bay?

San Francisco Bay gained the 400-acre island when quarried rock was piled on shoals that had been a hazard to shipping. After the fair it spent half a century as a US Navy station.

Which actor voiced the teenage Jim Hawkins in Treasure Planet, Disney's space retelling of Treasure Island?

Joseph Gordon-Levitt recorded most of his lines alone and asked to work face to face with the actor voicing Silver, because their scenes were hard to play solo.

Which country's 1988 animated Treasure Island gave the internet its strutting Dr Livesey meme in 2022?

The Soviet Union's Kyiv studio made it for television, mixing cartoon scenes with live actors who sing warnings against drinking and smoking. The doctor's confident walk into an inn is the clip that spread.

Which flag does the Hispaniola's captain refuse to lower over Treasure Island's stockade despite cannon fire?

The Union Jack goes up on a felled fir tree at the corner of the log-house, hoisted by the captain's own hand. Asked to take it in because it gives the gunners a target, he answers that he will not strike his colours.

What became of Stevenson's original hand-drawn map of Treasure Island when he sent it to his publisher?

It never arrived, so he had to rebuild the chart from every clue in the finished text, working with a pair of compasses. He wrote that the replacement never felt like the real island to him.

Which member of the Monkees voiced Jim Hawkins in the 1973 animated film of Treasure Island?

Davy Jones voiced the boy in Filmation's musical cartoon, which added a rum-loving pirate mouse called Hiccup as his sidekick. A shortened version later aired as an NBC special.

What post does Squire Trelawney give young Jim Hawkins for the voyage to Treasure Island?

Cabin boy is the job, announced in the same breath as the squire appoints himself admiral and the doctor ship's surgeon.

In Treasure Island, what kills the old captain at the inn moments after he is handed the black spot?

A stroke fells him as he springs to his feet, his second after the one brought on by his brawl with Black Dog. Jim, who had not liked the man, is surprised to find himself in tears.

In Treasure Island, what did Captain Flint do to the six crewmen who helped him bury his hoard?

Killed them all, then rowed back to his ship alone with his head bound in a blue scarf. Ben Gunn, who was aboard that day, says not a man could make out how one had beaten six.

Which animals does the marooned Ben Gunn hunt for meat during his three years alone on Treasure Island?

Goats kept him alive, along with berries and oysters, and he salted their meat for his store. He tells Jim a man can do for himself anywhere, yet his heart is sore for a Christian diet.

Treasure Island's author Robert Louis Stevenson was born at 8 Howard Place in which city?

Edinburgh christened him Robert Lewis Balfour; he changed the spelling to Louis at about eighteen and later dropped the third name altogether.

The seafood chain Long John Silver's, named for the Treasure Island pirate, was founded in which US state?

Kentucky is landlocked, yet the first outlet opened in Lexington in 1969, in a building that had been a seafood carry-out. Its founder, fittingly, was a man named Jim.

Which future Studio Ghibli director worked on the story of the 1971 anime Animal Treasure Island?

Hayao Miyazaki also drew a colour manga of the film, run in a Tokyo Sunday newspaper to promote it. The movie swaps several of the novel's human characters for animals.

Which child star played Jim Hawkins opposite Lionel Barrymore in MGM's 1934 film of Treasure Island?

Jackie Cooper starred in the first sound version of the story, directed by Victor Fleming. Barrymore played the old sea dog whose chest holds the map.

What nickname do the Hispaniola's crew use for Long John Silver throughout the voyage in Treasure Island?

Barbecue is what the hands shout when they want a song from him. The coxswain tells Jim he is no common man: well schooled, and braver than a lion.

On Flint's map in Treasure Island, Jim says the island's outline is shaped like which creature?

A fat dragon standing up is how Jim pictures it, about nine miles long and five across, with two landlocked harbours and a central hill marked The Spy-glass.

In Treasure Island, Captain Flint is said to have died shouting for drink in which American port?

Savannah still has an old inn, the Pirates' House, that claims he spent his last days there and that his ghost haunts the building.

What does Long John Silver hurl at Tom, the honest sailor who turns his back on the Treasure Island mutiny?

His crutch strikes the man point first between the shoulders and drops him. Jim, hidden in the undergrowth, comes close to fainting at what follows.

In Treasure Island, what does the wounded coxswain throw that pins Jim by the shoulder high in the rigging?

A dirk sings through the air and nails him in place, and in the shock both of Jim's pistols go off. The coxswain plunges into the water, rises once and then sinks for good.

What single word have the mutineers written on the black spot they hand Long John Silver in Treasure Island?

Deposed is the verdict, but Silver mocks the handwriting, talks the crew round and is voted captain again. He then tosses the scrap to Jim as a curiosity.

At the end of Treasure Island, the reformed castaway Ben Gunn becomes a notable singer in which setting?

In church on Sundays and saints' days is where he is heard, once he has been given a lodge to keep. The country boys make a pet of him, and something of a butt too.

Robert Newton returned as the pirate in the 1954 Treasure Island sequel Long John Silver, shot in which country?

Australia hosted the shoot at Sydney's Pagewood Studios, the first production there in CinemaScope. The same company kept its cast for a 26-episode television series.

Which star of Hammer's Dracula films played the blind beggar in the 1990 TNT film of Treasure Island?

Christopher Lee took the brief, chilling role in a version noted for lifting much of its dialogue straight from the book. Oliver Reed played the old sea captain the beggar comes to find.

Which American illustrator's pictures for the 1911 Scribner edition of Treasure Island made him famous?

N. C. Wyeth earned enough from the set to pay for his house and studio. He had been a student of Howard Pyle and went on to illustrate more than a hundred books.

Stevenson brought back the idea of a dangerous blind man from Treasure Island in which 1886 Highland adventure?

Kidnapped sends its young hero through the Highlands, where a ragged blind catechist who offers to guide him carries a pistol and, he later learns, can shoot by ear at several yards.

Three years after Treasure Island, Stevenson published which famous short novel that established his wider reputation?

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde went, inscribed, to a French restaurateur who had let the author dine on credit in California; it would be a stranger case still, he wrote, if he ever forgot the man.

Which relative of Stevenson's spent a day listing the contents of the sea chest for Treasure Island?

His father wrote the inventory on the back of a legal envelope, and Stevenson followed it exactly. The old man also asked for the name that was given to Flint's ship.

After stalling at chapter sixteen, Stevenson finished Treasure Island at a chapter a day in which Alpine resort?

Davos was where he had gone to pass the winter, close to despair over the book; he sat down one morning and found that the tale flowed, in his words, like small talk.

Stevenson admitted Treasure Island's opening chapters leaned heavily on Tales of a Traveller by which American author?

Washington Irving, he wrote, owned the old sailor, his chest, the company in the parlour and the whole spirit of those pages. He called it a debt that exercised his conscience.

Before joining Flint, Long John Silver says in Treasure Island that he first sailed under which real pirate captain?

Edward England was a real captain of the Indian Ocean whose own men marooned him for not being ruthless enough. Silver boasts that his parrot sailed with the man too.

Treasure Island drew on a 1724 General History of the Pyrates published under which captain's name?

Charles Johnson has never been identified, despite many attempts to work out who hid behind the name. His book gave later writers the pirate with a missing leg and the idea of hiding plunder underground.

Which Treasure Island pirate leads the final revolt against Silver and dies in the empty treasure pit?

George Merry is knocked into the hole by a musket shot from the thicket, and Silver finishes him with two pistol barrels. Moments before, Silver had teased him for standing for captain again.

The three hills that run in a row across Treasure Island are named after which parts of a ship?

Masts give the hills their names, fore, main and mizzen, though the tall middle one is usually called the Spy-glass after a lookout the pirates once kept there.

Which classic children's novel has its young heroes nickname an uncle Captain Flint, after Treasure Island?

Swallows and Amazons has the Walker children decide the man looks like a retired pirate. Arthur Ransome kept the nickname for him through the rest of the series.

Why does Jim Hawkins say he is keeping back the island's bearings at the opening of Treasure Island?

Loot still lies there, he explains in the very first sentence. The last page says what was left behind: the bars of bullion and the weapons, which he has no wish to go back for.

Which failing of Squire Trelawney's lets the whole port know about the secret voyage to Treasure Island?

A loose tongue is his weakness: before they set out, the doctor says the only man he fears is the squire, who cannot keep quiet. The captain later finds the whole crew knows the secret.

Which oath of Long John Silver's did Treasure Island turn into the stock pirate exclamation?

Shiver my timbers was in print before 1800 and turns up in a Captain Marryat novel of the 1830s, but Silver made it famous. He also swears by his sides and his soul.

In an 1881 letter, Stevenson boasted that Treasure Island could not fail to win over which readers?

The kids were his target from the start: he promised his friend a tale about a map, a mutiny and a derelict ship, and called it quite silly and horrid fun.

After his parley at the stockade fails in Treasure Island, what does Silver vow those who die will be?

The lucky ones, he snarls, promising to stove in the blockhouse within the hour. Moments earlier nobody would give him a hand up, and he had to crawl across the sand to get upright again.

What polite name do Silver and his shipmates in Treasure Island use for men who are really common pirates?

Gentlemen of fortune is the phrase Jim decodes as he listens in on the plot. Silver says such men live rough and risk swinging, but eat and drink like fighting cocks.

Ragged and three years marooned, what does Ben Gunn astonish Jim in Treasure Island by whispering that he is?

Rich is the word, and Jim takes it as proof that solitude has turned the poor man's wits. Only much later does it emerge that he was telling the plain truth.

According to the grim maxim the pirates repeat in Treasure Island, what is it that dead men never do?

Bite is the word, a saying credited to Flint's old mate and repeated by the coxswain just before he turns on Jim. The boy throws it back at him from the rigging.

Flattering young Jim at his tavern in Treasure Island, Long John Silver says the boy is as smart as what?

Paint is his comparison, and Jim later overhears him using the very same flattery on a young sailor he is recruiting. The boy is so stung that he wants to kill him on the spot.

Which principle does Long John Silver piously invoke again and again in Treasure Island, even to the captain?

Duty, in his own sailor's spelling, serves him while he pretends to hunt Black Dog and again at the stockade parley. He even credits the Hispaniola's strict captain with the same creed.

The Hispaniola's captain tells Jim they won't sail together again because the boy is too much of a born what?

Favourite is the word, a grudging tribute from a man who lives by rules to a boy whose disobedience kept saving them. The captain himself retires from the sea after the voyage.

Bedridden at the inn and begging Jim for rum, the old captain of Treasure Island dismisses all doctors as what?

Swabs is his verdict, backed by a boast that he survived places hot as pitch, with shipmates dropping from Yellow Jack, on nothing but rum.