Robert Louis Stevenson 
Treasure Island 

Treasure Island (1883), by Robert Louis Stevenson, is one of the most famous children’s novels of all time. Published for the first time in installments in the children’s magazine Young Folks in the years 1881-1882 under the title of Sea Cook, or Treasure Island (‘The cook on board or the treasure island’), it tells a story of ‘pirates and treasures ‘and has certainly contributed significantly to the popular imagination on these topics (starting with the stereotype of the pirate in the classic form in which he appears, for example, in Peter Pan and Pirates of the Caribbean). It is generally regarded as a Bildungsroman, but it contains unusual elements; for example Long John Silver, used by the author to describe the potential ambiguity of morality, is not a completely good character but not completely bad either.