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60 free Treasure Island trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Almost everything we think we know about pirates, from X marking the spot to the parrot on the shoulder, comes from one book, and this quiz goes through it chapter by chapter. It starts with how Treasure Island came to be: a map drawn to amuse a stepson on a wet Scottish holiday, a serial in Young Folks under a made-up captain's name, and the three words from a travel book that Stevenson called the seed of the whole thing. Then the story itself: the old seaman at the Admiral Benbow, Blind Pew and the black spot, the apple barrel, the one-legged cook and his parrot, the castaway who dreams of cheese, the fight with Israel Hands and the treasure that was never where the map said. The second half is the afterlife of the book: Wallace Beery as the first talking Silver, Robert Newton inventing the pirate accent for Disney's first live-action film, Orson Welles, Tim Curry and Kermit the Frog, the cyborg Silver of Treasure Planet, the prequel Black Sails, a Poet Laureate's sequel, a Star Wars series and a video-game hermit modelled on Ben Gunn. Easy questions are fair for anyone who read the book at school; the expert tier reaches Tom Redruth, Norman Island and Bobby Driscoll's day in court. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the novel, its characters and its adaptations, and the supporting sentence is attached to each question.
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Q 01Although published in the 1880s, Treasure Island is set in which period?
The 1700s
The narrator dates his account to 'the year of grace 17—', so Treasure Island is set in the 1700s, a generation after the golden age of piracy.
Q 02Under what working title did Stevenson originally write Treasure Island?
The Sea Cook
Stevenson's working title was The Sea Cook, subtitled 'A Story for Boys', before the tale was renamed Treasure Island for its magazine serial.
Q 03Treasure Island was first serialised in 1881–82 in which children's magazine?
Young Folks
Young Folks, a penny weekly for children, ran Treasure Island in seventeen instalments from October 1881 to January 1882.
Q 04Under what pseudonym was the serialised Treasure Island credited?
Captain George North
The serial was credited to 'Captain George North'; Stevenson, then little known, put his own name on the later book edition.
Q 05In what year was Treasure Island first published as a book, by Cassell & Co.?
1883
Cassell & Co. issued Treasure Island in book form on 14 November 1883, two years after its magazine serial began.
Q 06Where was Stevenson holidaying in 1881 when he drew the treasure map that started the story for his stepson?
Braemar, Scotland
At Braemar, Scotland, during the wet summer of 1881, Stevenson painted the map of an island that grew into the novel; his father chipped in details.
Q 07What was the name of Stevenson's stepson, for whom the story was invented?
Lloyd Osbourne
Lloyd Osbourne, Stevenson's teenage stepson, watched the map being drawn and later co-wrote The Wrong Box and The Ebb-Tide with him.
Q 08Stevenson found the seed phrase 'Dead Man's Chest' in a travel book by which author?
Charles Kingsley
Charles Kingsley's travel book At Last: A Christmas in the West Indies (1871) mentions Dead Chest Island, which Stevenson turned into the 'Dead Man's Chest' of the pirate song.
Q 09What is the name of the inn on the English coast where the story opens?
The Admiral Benbow
The Admiral Benbow inn, run by the narrator's parents near Black Hill Cove, is where the old seaman with the sea-chest takes a room.
Q 10Who narrates most of Treasure Island?
Jim Hawkins
Jim Hawkins, the innkeeper's son, narrates the book in the first person apart from three chapters told by another member of the treasure party.
Q 11The old seaman lodging at the inn as 'The Captain' is really which former first mate of Flint's?
Billy Bones
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.
Q 12Which blind beggar delivers the dreaded 'black spot' to the old seaman at the inn?
Pew
Blind Pew taps his way to the inn, forces the black spot into the old seaman's hand and gives him until ten o'clock; Silver says Pew once blew £1,200 a year.
Q 13The rogue Black Dog, who confronts the old captain at the inn, is missing what?
Two fingers of his left hand
Q 21Hiding in what does Jim overhear Silver plotting the mutiny?
An apple barrel
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.
Q 22Who is the captain of the Hispaniola?
Alexander Smollett
Captain Alexander Smollett, a stickler for discipline, distrusts the crew from the start and later tells Jim the two of them should never sail together again.
Q 23What happens to Mr Arrow, the Hispaniola's alcoholic first mate?
He is lost overboard
Mr Arrow, drunk throughout the voyage from some secret supply, vanishes one dark night; the crew conclude he is lost overboard, and nobody mourns him.
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.
Q 14When handed the black spot, Silver points out the paper was torn from what, bringing bad luck?
A Bible
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.
Q 15The expedition sails from which English port aboard the Hispaniola?
Bristol
Squire Trelawney buys and fits out the Hispaniola at Bristol, where he also blabs about the treasure and lets Silver help pick the crew.
Q 16What is Long John Silver's job aboard the Hispaniola?
Ship's cook
Silver signs on as ship's cook, nicknamed 'Barbecue' by the crew, having once been quartermaster aboard Flint's ship.
Q 17What is the name of Long John Silver's parrot?
Captain Flint
Silver's parrot is called Captain Flint, after the dead pirate captain he sailed under, and is said by Silver to be two hundred years old.
Q 18What phrase is Silver's parrot famous for squawking?
Pieces of eight
The parrot screams 'Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!' until out of breath; a piece of eight was a Spanish silver dollar worth eight reales.
Q 19Which leg has Long John Silver lost?
Left leg, near the hip
Silver has lost his left leg, near the hip — Jim notes it was 'cut off close by the hip' — yet he hops about on his crutch 'like a bird'.
Q 20Long John Silver was partly modelled on which one-legged, red-bearded editor friend of Stevenson?
William Ernest Henley
Stevenson confessed in a letter to William Ernest Henley that 'the sight of your maimed strength and masterfulness' had begotten Long John Silver.
Q 24Ben Gunn, the castaway Jim meets on the island, had been marooned there for how long?
Three years
Ben Gunn tells Jim he was marooned three years earlier by shipmates who failed to find the treasure, living since on goats, berries and oysters.
Q 25What food does the marooned Ben Gunn crave above all else?
Cheese
Ben Gunn dreams of cheese, 'toasted, mostly'; the ship's doctor later gives him a piece of Parmesan he carries in his snuffbox.
Q 26Where does the bulk of Flint's treasure turn out to be when the pirates dig?
Already moved to Ben Gunn's cave
The gold was already moved to Ben Gunn's cave — he had dug it up months before — so the pirates find only an empty pit and a broken pick-shaft.
Q 27After getting his £1,000 share, Ben Gunn was back begging on which day?
20
Ben Gunn spent or lost his thousand pounds in nineteen days and was back begging on day 20, so the squire gave him a lodge to keep.
Q 28Which pirate does Jim fight aboard the drifting Hispaniola after cutting her anchor cable?
Israel Hands
Israel Hands, the coxswain, pins Jim's shoulder to the mast with a thrown dirk before Jim's pistols fire; Stevenson took the name from a real pirate in Blackbeard's crew.
Q 29What was the name of Flint's pirate ship?
The Walrus
Flint's ship was the Walrus; Silver, once her quartermaster, remembers her 'amuck with the red blood and fit to sink with gold'.
Q 30How does Ben Gunn scare the superstitious pirates during the treasure hunt?
Shouting Flint's last words from the trees
Ben Gunn, shouting Flint's last words from the trees — 'Darby M'Graw, fetch aft the rum!' — convinces the pirates that Flint's ghost walks.