Treasure Island

When young Jim Hawkins finds a treasure map in a dead sailor's chest, he sets sail aboard the Hispaniola with a crew that includes the one-legged, silver-tongued Long John Silver — a ship's cook who may be the finest friend Jim has ever had, or the most dangerous man alive. Published in 1883, Robert Louis Stevenson's tale of mutiny, buried gold, and a boy's first taste of moral complexity single-handedly defined the pirate adventure genre, giving the world its enduring image of parrots, peg legs, and maps marked with an X. It remains one of the most purely thrilling adventure novels ever written.