Treasure Island (1883)

Robert Louis Stevenson, Mark F. Smith · 1883 · 454 min

Every pirate you have ever seen — the parrot, the wooden leg, the black spot, the map with the X — comes from this one book, written for a boy's magazine off a map Stevenson drew to amuse his stepson. What the imitators lost is Long John Silver, who is charming and a murderer and never stops being both; Jim Hawkins's real education is finding out that the most likeable man on the ship is the one who would cut his throat, and liking him anyway. Thirty-four chapters, six parts, a little under eight hours.

Mark F. Smith's solo reading, which is also the shelf's Call of the Wild and Time Machine: one steady voice for the adventure titles.

Chosen reading: LibriVox solo production, read by Mark F. Smith; Internet Archive item treasure_island_1307_librivox — 34 files, one per chapter, contiguously numbered (treasureisland_01_stevenson.mp3 … treasureisland_34_stevenson.mp3), 436 MB, 7 h 34 min total, catalogued 2013-07-28.

The novel has 34 chapters and the item has 34 chapter files; no gaps, no duplicates. Passed over: the two 2006–07 group readings, whose files bundle chapters in pairs; the 2015 solo (34 files, a fair alternate); the 2013 dramatic reading and the 1916 stage play, both adaptations and out of scope.

Published on the source's record rather than a listen-through (owner decision, 2026-08-26): LibriVox proof-listens every completed project chapter by chapter before release, and the three pilots' full listens turned up nothing their project pages had not already said — so the chapter table and byte check above are the verification, and the first listener who finds a fault in this reading should write to the Den.

Two layers, both clear:

• The book. Serialised in Young Folks 1881–82 and published as a book by Cassell, London, 1883; Stevenson died in 1894. The term expired long ago.
• The narration. LibriVox dedicates its recordings to the public domain; the item carries a Creative Commons Public Domain Mark 1.0 label. Recorded 2013 by Mark F. Smith, credited on the project page.