Treasure Island

Set in the middle of the 18th century, Robert Louis Stevenson's adventure opens at the Admiral Benbow Inn near Bristol, where an old sailor known as the Captain lodges and warns the innkeeper's son, Jim Hawkins, about a one-legged sailor. Jim comes into possession of a map of the island where the pirate Captain Flint hid his treasure. With Dr. Livesey and Squire Trelawney he joins an expedition aboard the schooner Hispaniola as cabin boy, and meets Long John Silver, the crew's one-legged cook. The story first ran as a serial in the magazine Young Folks before its 1883 book publication, and it shaped popular images of pirates, from treasure maps marked X to parrots on shoulders.

It appears among the childhood favorites Barack Obama shared with students at a Washington public library in 2015. Richard Branson also put it on his list of 65 books to read in a lifetime.