Flint's Island

The most popular pirate story ever written in English, featuring one of literature’s most beloved “bad guys,” Treasure Island has been happily devoured by several generations of boys—and girls—and grownups.

An unofficial sequel to the most popular pirate tale ever told—Treasure Island. In this story inspired by the opening line of the famous novel, in which Jim Hawkins tells of a “treasure not yet lifted” still hidden on an unknown island, find out what happens to out what happens to literature’s most beloved “bad guys”—Long John Silver—and whatever happened to the remaining treasure.

FROM THE AUTHOR:

Wibberley, in his foreword, tells how he came to write Flint's Island: “I realized I must myself, however unworthy, attempt to supply the story of what happened to the remaining treasure or die with that question, raised in childhood, unanswered.” and goes on to say, “Flint took over my own work without my willing it. He seemed to be always present as I wrote. I can truthfully say that when I started this tale I had no idea how it would end. Flint told me.” Told by Flint or not, it is a gratifyingly bloody and piratical tale, dominated by one of fiction's great hero-rogues, the endlessly cunning, forever evil Long John Silver.

"There is still treasure not yet lifted" - Treasure Island. 31 Aug 1760. Long John Silver returns. Tom Whelan 17 narrates fatal trip ashore for abstinent first mate Arrow to cautious Captain Edward Samuels on Baltimore brig Jane. Chest shot, missing pistol, empty brandy bottle, one-legged shipwrecked cook on crutch. Greed, mutiny, betrayal -- survival?


REVIEWS:

KIRKUS REVIEW
Here's what happened to “the treasure not yet lifted” from Flint's Island. Though Wibberley claims that this is not a sequel to Treasure Island (“Who would dare such a thing?”), it is precisely that. The return of Long John Silver is chronicled with an American accent by the youngest crew member of the Jane, a trading vessel out of Salem, Massachusetts. The Jane stops at Flint's Island to gather timber to replace the mast, but finds instead the marooned Silver who wins over the crew with promises of treasure. Even after his attempt to capture the ship is thwarted by loyal members of the crew, Long John's charisma is strong enough to cause a second mutiny and, in a manner of speaking, Silver comes out on top even though the treasure goes to the bottom of the ocean. Wibberley is not Stevenson, and there's none of the precise detail or timing which makes Treasure Island an archetypal adventure, but Silver's wiliness and Flint's mystique are perfectly captured and the American seamen -- prudent Captain Samuels, the unimaginative Yankee carpenter Smigley, the impulsive mutineer Green and the loyal, but mean-spirited Peasbody are worthy of their Hispaniola counterparts.

Four stars:

“Suspense see-saws over betrayal, disasters, triumphs, escapes, more losses than gains. Brutality of deceptive pirate - death, starvation, thirst, exposure - exceeds natural danger from sea storms.”—Goodreads Reviewer

“It was truly a pleasure to meet once again the infamous Long John Silver.”—Goodreads Reviewer

OPENING LINE TO TREASURE ISLAND:

“Squire Trelawnay, 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…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.”

KEYWORDS:

Children’s eBooks, Pirates, Teen & Young Adult, literature & fiction, Action & adventure, Sea Adventures, historical, buried treasure, gold