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Zusatztext "Over Treasure Island I let my fire die in winter without knowing I was freezing." Informationen zum Autor Robert Louis Stevenson Klappentext Masterfully crafted, Treasure Island is a stunning yarn of piracy on the fiery tropic seas—an unforgettable tale of treachery that embroils a host of legendary swashbucklers from honest young Jim Hawkins to sinister, two-timing Israel Hands to evil incarnate, blind Pew. But above all, Treasure Island is a complex study of good and evil, as embodied by that hero-villain, Long John Silver; the merry unscrupulous buccaneer-rogue whose greedy lust for gold cannot help but win the heart of every one who ever longed for romance, treasure, and adventure. Since its publication in 1883, Treasure Island has provided an enduring literary model for such eminent writers as Anthony Hope, Graham Greene, and Jorge Luis Borges. As David Daiches wrote: "Robert Louis Stevenson transformed the Victorian boys' adventure into a classic of its kind.” Chapter One The Old Sea Dog at the "Admiral Benbow" Squire Trelawney, Dr. Livesey, and the rest of these gentlemen having asked me to write down the whole particulars about Treasure Island, from the beginning to the end, keeping nothing back but the bearings of the island, and that only because there is still treasure not yet lifted, I take up my pen in the year of grace 17-, and go back to the time when my father kept the "Admiral Benbow" inn, and the brown old seaman, with the sabre cut, first took up his lodging under our roof. I remember him as if it were yesterday, as he came plodding to the inn door, his sea-chest following behind him in a hand-barrow; a tall, strong, heavy, nut-brown man; his tarry pigtail falling over the shoulders of his soiled blue coat; his hands ragged and scarred, with black, broken nails; and the sabre cut across one cheek, a dirty, livid white. I remember him looking round the cove and whistling to himself as he did so, and then breaking out in that old sea-song that he sang so often afterwards:- "Fifteen men on the dead man's chest- Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!" in the high, old tottering voice that seemed to have been tuned and broken at the capstan bars. Then he rapped on the door with a bit of stick like a handspike that he carried, and when my father appeared, called roughly for a glass of rum. This, when it was brought to him, he drank slowly, like a connoisseur, lingering on the taste, and still looking about him at the cliffs and up at our signboard. "This is a handy cove," says he, at length; "and a pleasant sittyated grog-shop. Much company, mate?" My father told him no, very little company, the more was the pity. "Well, then," said he, "this is the berth for me. Here you, matey," he cried to the man who trundled the barrow; "bring up alongside and help up my chest. I'll stay here a bit," he continued. "I'm a plain man; rum and bacon and eggs is what I want, and that head up there for to watch ships off. What you mought call me? You mought call me captain. Oh, I see what you're at-there;" and he threw down three or four gold pieces on the threshold. "You can tell me when I've worked through that," says he, looking as fierce as a commander. And, indeed, bad as his clothes were, and coarsely as he spoke, he had none of the appearance of a man who sailed before the mast; but seemed like a mate or skipper, accustomed to be obeyed or to strike. The man who came with the barrow told us the mail had set him down the morning before at the "Royal George;" that he had inquired what inns there were along the coast, and hearing ours well spoken of, I suppose, and described as lonely, had chosen it from the others for his place of residence. And that was all we could learn of our guest. He was a very silent man by custom. All day he hung round the cove, or upon the cliffs, with a brass telescope;...
