When he attends a dying patron of his family's boarding house, young Jim Hawkins has no idea that the man was once a pirate, or that the man's possessions include a map that will lead whoever has it to the island wherethe notorious buccaneer, Captain Flint, buried his treasure.

Jim and his guardians hire a boat to sail to the island, unaware that crew they have hired includes many members of Flint's pirate band, among them former quartermasterLong John Silver,and that they hope to claim the treasure for their own. Theensuing action-packed adventure establishedthe classicpirate story as itwas written for more than a centuryafterward, and it made the literary reputation of its young author, Robert Louis Stevenson.