《金銀島》講述的是浪漫而奇險的海上尋寶故事。一日,少年吉姆‧霍金夢見寶藏和海上歷險。沒過幾天,他就從一位生命垂危的水手彭斯的手中得到藏寶圖,他與鄉紳屈利勞尼、醫生李福西等一道乘船去尋找南方的寶島。然而,海盜頭目西爾弗及其手下也一道上船。原來,這筆價值70萬英鎊的寶藏是已故海盜船長弗林特留下的,他的爪牙還在,他們也在覬覦這宗財寶,于是,一場驚心動魄的奪寶大戰由此展開。
這雖是一本寫給孩子們的書,但小說題材新穎,情節變幻莫測,尤其是幾個主要人物性格鮮明生動,即使是海盜西爾弗,也並不臉譜化,因而,這部小說自誕生以來一直深受各年齡層讀者的喜愛,並多次被手搬上銀幕。
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer. Stevenson was greatly admired by many authors, including Jorge Luis Borges, Ernest Hemingway;
Rudyard Kipling, Marcel Schwob, Vladimir Nabokov, J. M. Barrie, and G. K. Chesterton, who said of him that he \〃seemed to pick the right word up on the point of his pen, like a man playing
spillikins\〃.