Ste­ven­son’s great crea­ti­on, the one-​legged Long John Sil­ver, is one of the most me­mo­ra­ble cha­rac­ters in Eng­lish li­te­ra­tu­re. A few years after Tre­a­su­re Is­land was pu­blished, J. M. Bar­rie crea­ted a si­mi­lar fi­gu­re in his play Peter Pan – Cap­tain Hook, who had only one hand (in­s­tead of ha­ving only one leg). In any ad­ven­ture story, it is es­sen­ti­al to have the ‘good guys’ strugg­ling against the ‘bad guys’. Pi­ra­tes were ex­tre­me­ly sui­ta­ble for the role of bad guys, as they went against the rules of so­cie­ty and lived out­si­de the law. Un­li­ke ghosts and mons­ters, which were also po­pu­lar in the sto­ries of the ni­ne­teenth cen­tu­ry, pi­ra­tes re­al­ly exis­ted, and the­re­fo­re, they were much more ef­fec­ti­ve fi­gu­res of fear and hor­ror for child­ren – even older ones.